


the arc of our awakening

by rosehips



Series: Barson tropes [3]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Love Confessions, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Smut, Squabbling, and a fair amount of fluff thrown in there too, emotional repression but also vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-05-27 16:29:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15028619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosehips/pseuds/rosehips
Summary: "This defies plausibility," Rafael says aloud after hanging up on the last hotel. It's almost ten. He's loopy on Vicodin and denial. There are no rooms left.Or: after an aborted attempt at finally facing their feelings for each other, Rafael and Olivia get stuck sharing a bed.Title from “Any Available Surface” by the Mountain Goats.{Trope: bed-sharing.}





	1. Sunday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I waved at you when you hit the disappearing point_   
>  _Turned in for the night the next day around ten_   
>  _I caught the sweet scent of your hair on my pillowcase_   
>  _Felt so much in love, I felt like myself again._   
>    
>  _Some days the only thing I want to rely upon_   
>  _Is any available surface that you've rested your head on._   
>    
>  _Back in the cave I traced the arc of our awakening_   
>  _Shimmering down in the darkness like hidden gold_   
>  _And I said my secret to myself out loud again_   
>  _We may live to see miracles if our faith can hold._   
>    
>  _Some days the only thing I want to rely upon_   
>  _Is any available surface that you've rested your head on._

“I don’t miss Ed.”

Rafael looks up in surprise to see Olivia sitting on the bed, one knee to her chest and the other leg stretched out before her. She’s not holding her bent leg to herself — what would be a half-fetal position — but he can tell she wants to by the tension in her arms, which are bare. Bare and maybe still a bit damp from her shower and she doesn’t miss Tucker. And she’s choosing to tell him this _now_.

“Hmm,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound nervous. He looks back down at his book and refuses to allow himself to shift in the scratchy hotel armchair.

“Isn’t that awful?” she muses. “We were together for over a year. We went to Paris together.”

 _I remember._ Rafael can hear his own sarcasm in his head.

“I loved him.”

_I know._

“Or at least I thought I did.”

_...Huh._

She turns to look at him and he raises his gaze from the page to her face. Rafael can’t read her expression.

That’s a lie.

He can read her, after five years he can always read her, but he’s scared of what he sees because she looks — well, somehow pensive and reckless at the same time. Whatever she’s thinking of is a bad idea. She should stop before she gets them both into trouble.

He swallows but raises an eyebrow, trying not to worry about the fact that she can read him just as easily as he can her. “Do you need my advice on something?” he asks dryly.

Olivia regards him for a moment. “No.” She stretches out her bent leg and reaches to the bedside table for a book of her own. _Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of NIMH_. She hardly has time to read, and when she does she chooses sweet, light books. Ones she thinks Noah might enjoy when he’s a little older. Rafael finds this almost unbearably endearing. “Just thinking out loud.”

“Hmm,” Rafael says again, and returns to Allende’s _La Casa De Los Espíritus_ _._ An old comfort book for a long trip.

_I don’t miss him._

He bites his lip. Steals a glance. She’s not reading either — just frowning at the page, eyes unmoving.

“Maybe...” She looks over at him and he gestures vaguely. “Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.” _And what is that supposed to mean?,_ he demands of himself immediately. “Maybe it was for the best,” he adds, digging himself deeper. “Because he wanted to retire,” he explains. “And you didn’t.” _Obviously._ “Just bad timing. Maybe you’ll reconnect one day.”

She gives him a wry, only slightly frustrated look. “So which is it, not meant to be or bad timing and we’ll get back together?”

“I don’t know,” he says peevishly. “I’m just presenting possibilities.” _Including the possibility that you’ll go back to him, which would be a better idea than what you’re going for right now so please get the message._

“I said I didn’t love him.”

Rafael shuts his book. “You said you weren’t sure. It sure looked like you did at the time. And he loved you.” He manages not to sound bitter. Mostly. “He probably still does.”

“You never liked him,” she says accusingly. “Why are you defending him all of a sudden?”

“I wasn’t aware he was under attack.”

"He's — he's not." She rubs a hand over her face. "I'm tired."

Rafael almost asks her where all this is coming from, but he stops himself. He knows the answer, and he can't let either of them say it out loud. There'll be no going back.

"You should sleep, then," he says gently. "I'll go down and check if they have my room ready." The chirpy girl at the front desk had assured him it would be and apologized for the inconvenience — _so many conference guests, so sorry for the mix-up, Mr. Barba, we'll have it ready for you by eight_ — so it had better fucking be ready.

"It's only seven thirty," Olivia points out.

"I'll wait in the lounge."

"It's fine," she says pointedly. "I'm not falling asleep anytime soon."

He admits defeat with a shrug and crosses his legs, settling further back into the chair. _Doesn't matter. Like she said, it's fine._ Except she doesn't look ready to drop it, this ill-advised conversation, and he's getting more and more nervous he won't be able to control its direction.

Sure enough: "It's only been a month since we broke up. Shouldn't I miss him?"

Rafael sighs out loud and ignores the look she gives him in response. "You didn't break up, you dumped him, and I'm sure you were thinking about it for much longer than a month. You were ready. You did most of your feeling about it beforehand, so you don't miss him now, it makes sense." _Now please drop it._

There's a smile tugging at her lips.

"What."

"Nothing. You." Olivia shakes her head fondly. "Whenever you give me advice about — I don't know, _emotions_ or whatever — you always blunder for a bit and then hit on exactly the right thing to say."

"I'm going to choose to take that as a compliment," he informs her, and tries to ignore the happy skip of his heart. _Exactly the right thing._ "Anyway. Glad I could help." He pointedly opens his book again.

"Do you really think it was only for the best because he wanted to retire and I didn't?"

He groans. "Liv, I don't know. It was your relationship. I'm tired. I just want to read. Let's not — look, if you don't miss him, it must have been for the best, does it really matter _why_?"

"Yes, it matters," she says quietly.

_Fuck._

"Maybe you should talk to Lindstrom about it," he suggests, and she looks offended. "No, no, I mean — I just mean as an objective outside party. It could help."

"So you're not objective."

"Of course not. I'm your friend."

Olivia regards him. “I did talk to Lindstrom, actually.”

“Good,” he encourages.

“He wants me to be more... communicative.” She grimaces. “Actually, the word he used was _vulnerable_. And honest. He wants me to allow myself to be vulnerable and address things head-on. With people I trust. Even if it’s, uh... scary.”

She pulls her gaze from the bedspread back up to his face. It’s no use trying to school his expression. He knows his panic is clear.

“I’m not good at vulnerable, Liv,” he managed to get out through numb lips. “Not even with you.”

She smiles ruefully. “I know. Maybe that’s why we — why it’s — ” She takes a breath, and then, despite his silent pleas, plunges ahead. “Maybe that’s why it’s taken us so long. We’re both bad at this.”

Despite himself, Rafael uncrosses his legs and leans forward.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

The denial is paper-thin and pathetic but at least he’s managed to hide the anger that’s flared up within him. How can she do this to him, to them — break their unspoken agreement to keep all of this unspoken?

“Yes, you do,” she says steadily.

“I — Olivia, _I don't want to talk about this._ "

"Why not?" she demands.

"Why do _you_?" he counters. "It's been years, all of a sudden it needs discussion?" He curses himself the moment the words leave his mouth. _Years?_ He had to let slip that it's been _years?_

She doesn't look surprised. "I told you. I talked to Lindstrom. I think he's right. This conversation is overdue."

He's shaking his head, over and over. "No," he says adamantly. "No, this conversation is unnecessary. Just because you broke up with Tucker doesn't mean anything should change between _us._ You have to understand," he continues, switching tacks almost against his will. He hates to plead. "I can't — we can't do this. We work together. We have _no_ free time. Neither of us has a good track record, and Liv, you're my best friend." _Practically my only friend, these days. For the love of god, shut the hell up._

She opens her mouth to protest, or to confess that she —

"It's just not worth the risk," he tells her flatly, and gets to his feet. "Just think, think for even a _moment_ what would happen if it went wrong."

She looks stricken, but he knows he has to be merciless, has to make sure they never bring this up again. Because he's not sure he'll be able to say no next time.

"It would destroy _everything,_ " he tells her. And himself. "There would be no coming back."

"Of course I've thought of that," Olivia snaps. She straightens her back up and crosses her legs. Her hands are balled in fists atop her knees. "But at some point we have to _try,_ we can't just sit around like this forever."

"Oh yes we can. And we should."

"Rafa —"

He lifts his hands, palms up, to stop her. " _I cannot have this conversation._ " She stops, and he can _see_ her realize how hard he's breathing. He forces himself to slow down. "I'm going to see if my room is ready, and then I'm going to get my things and go there, and tomorrow the conference will start and we'll have plenty to talk about that isn't _this_. Okay?"

Olivia's lips are a thin line. "Never took you for a coward, Rafael," is all she says, and he turns on his heel and leaves.

 

The chipper woman at the front desk has been replaced with an equally chipper coworker. _No one should be this happy at eight o'clock on a Sunday night,_ Rafael thinks pissily. Out loud, he asks for his room.

"Single room for a Mr. Barba," the person repeats, scanning their computer screen. "Hmmmmmm."

 _Jesus Christ, just give me my fucking room number and key and let me find some peace._ "Is there a problem?" he inquires. Through his teeth. But politely.

"I'm not able to find a reservation under that name," the person says.

Rafael pinches the bridge of his nose, takes a breath, and drops his hand. "Yes, that's what your coworker said this afternoon, but she found a record of my assistant’s emails with the concierge and assured me that the room would be ready for me by now. The room that my office paid for. Over a month ago."

The person's smile doesn't falter in the slightest, which Rafael finds both obnoxious and impressive.

"Let me take another look," they say, and start tapping away again. "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..."

"Maybe it's under Noble?" Rafael offers. "Carmen Noble, my assistant? She made the arrangements."

More tapping. "No, I'm not finding anything under that name either, Mr. Barba. In fact, we're all booked up for the night. I'm so sorry about that!" the person says brightly.

Rafael stares at them for a beat. "You don't have a single room available."

"There's a big conference in town," the person explains. "Thousands of people in from all over the country."

"Yes, I know, I'm a speaker," Rafael snaps. "Sorry. I'm just — I'm very tired, and _I paid for this room,_ and I _need_ it."

"There simply isn't a room," the person says with merciless cheer. "But I can provide you with the names and phone numbers of other hotels in town! Maybe one of them will have an opening."

"Fine. Yes. Thank you." Rafael pulls out his phone as he waits for the person to get the list. The battery is at 3%. His charger is in Liv's room. _Goddamnit. Fuck, fuck, fuck._

"Here you go!" the person chirps, handing him a paper with a dozen or so hotels listed, along with their respective addresses and phone numbers. "Good luck!"

Rafael manages to thank them again before heading back to the elevators.

 

It takes Olivia a full minute to answer when he knocks at her door.

"Something tells me you're not back to finish our conversation," she says when she does. To Rafael's great relief, there's no sign that she's been crying.

"I need to use the phone," he says tightly, raising up his own to show her the low battery notification. "They don't have a room for me."

Surprise flits across her face before being replaced with that stonewalling look again. She steps back so he can enter, and gestures him silently to the phone on the desk across from the bed. He notices that her book is back on the bedside table, closed.

Rafael doesn't have any luck with the first hotel. Or the second. Or the third. "What about any later in the week?" he asks with increasing desperation. "I could check in tomorrow, or even — _the whole week?_ Yes, I know about the conference, I — never mind. Thank you."

He hangs up and allows himself to put his head in his hands, only because if he doesn't he feels like he'll scream. He hasn't turned around once since sitting down, but he can _feel_ Olivia's presence behind his back. Can feel the tension rising in the room with every phone call he makes.

After the fourth hotel declares itself booked for the week too, he excuses himself to the bathroom without looking at Olivia. Once the door is closed and locked, he sits down on the closed toilet seat and covers his face with his hands and tries to breathe. _It's fine,_ he tells himself. _It's fine. You're only trapped in a tiny room for a week with your best friend who basically just made you confess that you've been in love with her for years and then called you a coward because you don't want to ruin everything by acting on it. And you have to give a presentation with her to hundreds of people on Tuesday. And you have a migraine coming on. It's fine._

For some reason, this doesn’t help to calm him. He chooses a different strategy. _You've been through worse. Suck it up, take a painkiller, and call the rest of the hotels._

Which is what he does.

They're all booked.

"This defies plausibility," Rafael says out loud after hanging up on the last one (the Watergate, he'd noted with distant amusement). It's almost ten. He's loopy on Vicodin and denial.

Olivia doesn't respond. _She's really going to make me ask._

He turns around in his chair and faces her for the first time in hours. "Listen... can I just stay here tonight, and call all those places back tomorrow about last-minute cancellations or openings or something." He refuses to say it like a question because she owes him an apology and he doesn't have to be nice. It's not like she's going to kick him out onto the street.

"Sure." She says it without looking up from her book.

He forces out what feels like his one hundredth insincere "thank you" of the night, except this time he doesn't bother to pretend he's not pissed off. She wanted honesty, right?

Following her lead on the silent treatment, Rafael rummages around in the closet for spare bedding. There's only a pillow and a thin blanket, but it'll have to do. He can get a massage at whatever hotel he ends up at tomorrow and his back will be fine.

"You can sleep on the bed," Olivia sighs.

"Don't be ridiculous," he says as he gets out his dopp kit. "I'm not making you sleep on the floor."

"I meant we can share."

Rafael raises his head to stare at her. The movement seems to take a lot of effort. He thinks maybe he shouldn’t have had that Vicodin.

"Not like that," she snaps, flushing slightly. "I'm not trying to — it's a California King, Rafael, it's practically a mile across. We can make a pillow wall in the middle if that makes you feel better."

He rolls his eyes, but thinks of his back. The bed really is very big. "Fine," he concedes, and immediately wishes he'd at least pretended to take a little longer to consider it. When he starts to actually build a pillow wall, she laughs out loud at him.

" _What_."

"I didn't think you'd take that seriously," she teases, not particularly kindly.

"Well, after that conversation you just tried to have, excuse me if I want to keep some distance.” He immediately regrets saying it.

"I'm sorry," she says sarcastically. "Are you worried I'm going to assault you in your sleep?"

"That's not what I meant. And it’s not funny." _As if I need to tell you that._

"So I'm just so repulsive you can't stand to be close to me."

"You're being ridiculous again," he tells her.

"Am I?" She lifts her chin and gives him a challenging stare.

To his horror, Rafael sees real pain in her eyes. _I put that there,_ he thinks.

"Olivia..." His voice has gone soft almost against his will. He can't help it, though, not with her eyes like that. He can't even look away from her. "You know I — you know I don't find you repulsive, Jesus, that's the _problem_. You're — I mean, even right now without any makeup or anything — I mean — listen."

She raises an eyebrow. "To what?"

He laughs despite himself. "Never mind. You know." He focuses back on the pillows, feeling silly.

"Yeah." Her voice is soft. Almost angry, almost sad, but not quite either. "I do."

 

 _Maybe I would have slept better on the floor after all._ It's almost midnight and Rafael is still staring at the ceiling, wide awake despite the Vicodin and the late hour. He supposes he should be grateful that he’s too uncomfortable (and angry, and tired, and a little bit high) to get hard, because wouldn’t _that_ just be the icing on the cake. He’s never once allowed himself to get off on fantasies of Olivia; the very thought of doing so filled him with shame. It felt disrespectful. Dishonest. A secret violation. He couldn’t do that to her.

Which meant it wasn’t uncommon that Rafael would have to take a cold shower because his mind had betrayed him by sneaking in fantasies he shouldn’t ever entertain. Olivia jerking him off slow and hard, or making him jerk off for her, put on a show. Olivia pushing him to his knees and lifting her dress. Olivia riding him, or under him, or him behind her; Olivia holding his hips down as she sucks him off; Olivia telling him in a low, hot voice just _exactly_ how she wants him —

 _Jesus._ He’s doing it again.

Rafael rolls onto his side, facing away from her oblivious, sleeping body, and forces his mind to focus on the acceptable and appropriate topic of their presentation on Tuesday. _Comprehensive Criminal Justice: how to facilitate communication between police and prosecutors to ensure convictions and serve victims._

A mouthful of a title, but it gets the point across. Rafael will open with a lecture on giving police precincts in-depth training on relevant legal standards as a strategy to prevent cases getting thrown out for mishandling of evidence, abusive interrogations, and so on. He’ll also discuss how building trust between cops and the DA’s office can help the latter make better decisions regarding which cases to prosecute, and how. Then he’ll introduce Olivia, who will go over things from the perspective of the police and the victims, keeping things general so they apply to Homicide and other major crimes as much as SVU.

They’ve rehearsed it a couple times before, and presented an earlier, abbreviated version at a smaller conference in New York a few months ago. They’ve really got it down well, Rafael thinks, but he goes through his lecture in his mind anyway. The familiar path of reasoning oddly comforts him despite the horror and trauma of the case studies. _Maybe_ **_I_ ** _should see a therapist,_ he thinks vaguely as he starts to drift off.

Even half-asleep, he laughs at the idea. He’s glad it works for Liv, but he could never. He keeps his best friend at a safe distance and builds walls out of whatever he can get his hands on when she gets too close. _A therapist wouldn’t stand a chance,_ Rafael tells himself.

He can’t fall asleep quickly enough to avoid the thought that a therapist stood a chance with the woman sleeping beside him, who has walls of her own. _But she has the strength to let people in despite them. She’s stronger than me._ Maybe it’s the Vicodin, but the realization doesn’t make him sad. Just a little floaty and so very fond of her.

He wants to reach over and take her hand, but he won’t. That’s the whole point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been wanting to play with the bed-sharing trope for a while, and decided to use it as an opportunity to write Rafael and Olivia’s relationship very differently than I’ve interpreted it before. 
> 
> All my other fics, I feel, work with the same basic versions of these characters in terms of their core motivations, feelings for each other, feelings about those feelings, etc. 
> 
> This version is new. I’m not sure I buy it, but I’m having a lot of fun. Let me know what you think.


	2. Monday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for so many lovely comments on the first chapter — you’ve really encouraged me especially in regards to this new characterization I’m trying for them, and I’m really grateful! Now here, enjoy some more sexual and emotional tension.

****Rafael gets up before Olivia. He gathers his clothes quietly and heads to the bathroom, only emerging once he’s clean and fully clothed.

She’s just starting to wake by now, and as she stirs he’s stopped dead in his tracks by the domesticity of it all. Remaining steam from the shower, drifting lightly behind him into the bedroom and carrying the scent of tea tree oil and Terre D’Hermes — the smell of his mornings — mixed with a hint of lavender from her shower last night. Him, barefoot and damp-haired. And Olivia, rising tousle-headed from their shared bed.

 _This could be every day._ The thought betrays him merely by entering his head, and does worse by refusing to leave. _Every morning could be like this,_ it taunts him. But Rafael knows better, and he repeats his long-used mantra as he averts his eyes from where Olivia’s sleep shirt is slipping off her shoulder: _Having some of her forever is better than having and then losing all of her._

He clears his throat and busies himself with putting on a pair of bright purple socks that match his suspenders, and then over those his shoes. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” she yawns.

“I’m going to go down and get us some coffee,” he says, and he’s grabbed a roomkey and is out the door before she can get another word in. It doesn’t exactly help him feel like he’s not a coward.

 

Cowardice is the least of his concerns when he walks in on Olivia topless.

“Fuck!” he shrieks, barely managing not to drop the coffees as he whirls around to face the door. “Oh my god, Liv, I’m sorry —”

“Why didn’t you _knock!_ ” she demands. He can hear her fumbling for clothes.

“I had a coffee in each hand, I —”

“You managed to get the door open!”

“I didn’t think, I didn’t think I needed to knock, okay, I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine! It’s fine.”

 _Oh my god,_ he thinks. He’d only caught a glimpse before shutting his eyes and turning, but he wishes he’d seen nothing at all because he’s certain he’ll never be able to forget it, no matter how he tries. She’d been standing in profile, tugging up a pair of black slacks over simple black underwear, and the curve of her ass — the slight swing of her breasts as she bent at the waist — _god._ He is so fucked.

Olivia sighs again. “I’m decent. You can turn around now.”

Rafael does so gingerly and keeps his eyes trained on the cups. He winces belatedly when he sees, and only _then_ feels, that some of the hot coffee has spilled down his left hand. “I’m so sorry,” he says to Olivia, blindly stretching out his arm to offer her the un-spilled cup. Her fingers brush his when she takes it from him. He lets go immediately, and hears it hit the floor.

“Oh, goddamnit,” Olivia groans. “I didn’t even have it all the way in my hand yet, Rafael, if you could bring yourself to _look_ at me you’d know.”

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably. He sets down his own coffee on the desk and hurries to get a hand towel from the bathroom. Despite his best efforts, the stain is set. “I’ll pay the cleaning fee.”

“My office will pay the cleaning fee,” Olivia corrects him. There’s some amusement in her voice, and when he forces himself to look up at her he sees she has a wry smile.

“Right.” He moves to get to his feet and winces again. “Uh. Lend a hand?”

She does. “You should start going to yoga,” she informs him as he massages his knees. “It helps your joints, makes you more flexible too. I can recommend a few places.”

 _Great. Because what I need right now is to imagine you in yoga pants. Being flexible._ “No thank you,” Rafael says crisply. “When do you find time to do that, anyway? Between work and Noah and everything?” He checks his pants for coffee stains and is pleased to find there are none.

Olivia shrugs. “It’s only an hour a week. Makes a difference, though.”

“Hmm,” he says skeptically, but doesn’t argue. Instead he checks his watch. “We should get going.”

“Give me a minute to get my things together,” and shakes her head when he offers her the unspilled coffee. “I’ll get my own on the way when you get your second cup. If you don’t get your fix soon you’re going to be bitchy all morning.”

“Bitchier than usual, you mean.” He’s already drinking the coffee but manages to smirk and talk at the same time.

Olivia laughs. “Yeah, exactly. Drink up so you can turn on the charm for all these D.C. bigwigs. They’re the ones who control our funding and grants.”

“I know.” He tosses the empty cup in the trash. Someone else might comment on the fact that he drained it in two pulls, but Olivia isn’t fazed. “We’ll charm ‘em alright.”

And they do; they make a formidable team. By the time they compare notes at lunch they’ve gathered twenty-three business cards between the two of them; six are from people who can help NYPD get funding to test rape kits.

“This is really good,” Rafael tells her, tapping the stack of cards against the table.

Olivia flashes a grin, and it’s so easy to forget he’s mad at her, to pretend that everything is fine. _Maybe that’s all it’ll take,_ he thinks; _We can just keep pretending we only want to be friends until it’s real._

He decides not to think about it.

Instead, they split up to attend different afternoon seminars, and at three he excuses himself back up to the room (the droning speaker isn’t telling Rafael anything he doesn’t already know) to call back the hotels.

 

An hour after that he’s still sitting, slightly stunned, at the desk where he’d been last night.

_There are still no fucking rooms._

All relaxed thoughts of pretending things are normal seem laughable now in the face of having to spend another night here. For a moment he considers taking the train back to New York and commuting to and from the conference each day, spending the night in the comfort of his own apartment, but then thinks about all the morning sessions and rejects the idea. But hotels in Maryland and Virginia — some of those must be open. He can handle a bit of a drive. The annoyance will be nothing compared to the tension of another night in Olivia's bed.

Not a sentence Rafael ever imagined he'd think. For many reasons.

He pushes away the memories of all the times he's imagined being in her bed under very different circumstances, pushes down even further the fact that despite these circumstances he still _wants_ to stay in her bed, and Googles hotels in Maryland.

The room door opens. "What are you reading that's got you frowning at your phone like that?" Olivia asks. "The news?"

He refuses to look up. "Looking for hotels. All the ones in D.C. are still full so I'm casting the net wider."

She's quiet for a moment. "Our presentation is tomorrow morning. Your lecture starts at eight."

"I know."

"You're going to commute an hour from Maryland? On the train?"

"I'll shell out for a cab.” He's heard enough horror stories about delays on the D.C. metro, even fires, to avoid it.

Olivia makes a derisive sound.

Unable to help himself, he looks up with a glare. "What."

"The conference is at _this hotel._ It's ridiculous to go that far when there's a perfectly fine bed right here."

He laughs out loud. "I barely slept last night, Olivia.” To his relief and disappointment, he sees that a Marriott in Chevy Chase, just outside D.C., has listed vacancies on its website. He chooses to pay attention to the relief and ignore the disappointment, refusing to think about how last night was the closest he’ll ever get to her. “Here,” he says, holding up his phone. “I found one less than five miles away.”

She gives a careless shrug and heads to the bathroom. “I have to freshen up,” she says as she shuts the door. “Don’t bother waiting. I can meet you downstairs for the keynote.”

Rafael rubs a hand over his face and stands to leave. He opens the door to the hall, hesitates, and shuts it before padding over to the armchair. He hates the chair but it’s more comfortable than the one at the desk and better than the bed — which, while freshly made up, still feels somehow like Olivia.

He figures he’ll wait for her and they can walk down together. It’s just that this way they’ll be able to compare notes before the speech, he tells himself, except there’s really no need to do that and he knows, he _knows_ that it’s only a flimsy excuse to spend more time with her. He scoffs at himself. _It’s not like you’re never going to see her again. You’ll just be staying in your own room like you were supposed to all along._

Still, he waits, scrolling through the New York Times app as he does. Bad news from the UK, bad news from Myanmar, bad news from Pakistan, bad news from all over America, an essay by a matchmaker who pairs lonely people with rescue dogs… Rafael puts his phone away and checks the time. She’s been in the bathroom for ten minutes. She doesn’t wear that much makeup.

Tapping his foot impatiently, he gives it another minute and then gets up.

He’s got his hand raised to knock on the bathroom door when he hears it.

She’s crying.

 _Fuck,_ Rafael thinks blindly, _no, oh no_ — he turns to sneak out of the room, then turns back, repeats the motion twice and feels like a fool for spinning in circles and then knocks after all.

“Liv?” he calls tentatively.

The sounds stop. She clears her throat. “I thought you went downstairs.” Her voice is rough.

“No, I — I decided to wait. Um… are you okay?”

Olivia opens the door so quickly it almost hits him in the face. “No,” she answers accusingly. Her face is wet with tears and Rafael’s jaw drops at the lurch of pain in his stomach when he sees it.

“Liv, it’s okay,” he says softly, and with only a second of hesitation he moves forward to hug her. For a moment she looks like she’s going to shove him away ( _she would have every right to,_ he thinks) but instead she allows him to hold her.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Her arms come up to wrap around his waist and he can’t help himself, he just can’t: he pulls her closer and rests his cheek against her hair. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Her voice is muffled; her face is pressed against his shoulder. It’s a test.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath and squeezes his eyes closed. _Vulnerable and honest._ That’s what she’d said last night. Literally what the doctor ordered.

“That we can’t be… what you want us to be,” he answers at last, rather lamely. _That I can’t be what you want me to be. What I want myself to be._

“Bullshit,” Olivia says, squeezing her arms tight around him. He failed the test.

Rafael manages to huff out a laugh, but can’t think of any response beyond that. So he diverts.

“Let’s get you some water,” he says gently. “And some food. You’ll feel a lot better.”

“You sound like me with Noah.” Olivia sniffs. “You’d be — never mind.”

But he has to fight back tears of his own now because he knows what she was going to say and it’s almost too much to bear. The fact that she believes it, the fact that she’s wrong, it _hurts_ in a simple, inescapable way, and all he can do is hold her tighter. Hold on.

_You’d be a good father._

_No, I wouldn’t,_ he tells her silently. _Not a good husband either, or even a boyfriend, I just don’t know how and I can’t fuck it up when it’s you so I can’t try at all._

“It’s enough that we’re friends,” he says out loud. Quiet and sweet the way he only ever is with her. “It is, really.”

Olivia takes a deep breath of her own and pulls back. He feels her absence like the winter cold outside, and it doesn’t help when she gives him a watery smile and says, “You’re right.”

He digs out a handkerchief from his breast pocket and hands it to her.

She thanks him and dabs her face dry, which should make things better except then she looks at him with the most heartbreaking expression he’s ever seen outside a crime scene: brave and determined and sad and vulnerable and hopeful all at once.

“Stay.”

That’s all she says. No supporting argument, no explanation. And no refusing her. Rafael couldn’t even if he wanted to.

He gives her a small smile. “Okay.” 

She lets out a breath. “Okay,” she repeats, and pulls herself together with visible effort. “Okay. What time is it?”

He checks his watch. “Shit. It’s almost five. We have to get to the keynote.”

“Alright, let me put some makeup on,” she says, and laughs when she catches the wary look on his face: “Don’t worry, I won’t start crying again.”

Rafael shakes his head with a rueful smile. “Hurry up, then.” He pulls out his phone and closes out of the window with the hotel information.

 

They rebuild the pillow wall together that night, but this time it’s almost fun.

“You’re making your side wider than mine,” Rafael complains, just to entertain her.

She scoffs with a grin. “It’s perfectly even. Don’t be greedy.”

“Hmm,” he grumps. “I’ll allow it.”

“You’re _so_ generous, Judge Barba,” she says with good-natured sarcasm. “Do you need to make a ruling on custody over the pillows we’re actually sleeping on too, or is half and half fine?”

“Yes, but I want visitation rights tomorrow afternoon. I like having one under my back when I nap.”

“That’s fine with me,” she concedes magnanimously.

“Well thank you kindly.” He flops onto his side, compulsively replacing a pillow that slides out of place when he does. He’s already brushed his teeth and dressed in pajamas, and he’s pleasantly tired with a buzz of happiness that reminds him of sleepovers he’d had at friends’ houses as a kid. The feeling increases when Olivia switches off the light and the mattress dips with her weight. They both maneuver themselves under the covers, careful not to disturb the pillows or stray too close to the center of the bed where they might brush up against each other.

“I feel like a kid at a sleepover,” Olivia confesses.

He turns to face her, although he can’t even see her over the large, fluffy pillow between them. From her voice he can tell she’s facing him too.

“So do I,” he says. “Alex and Eddie and I used to stay up all night.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Rafael knows what she thinks of Alex. He agrees, really: _criminal, predator, cheater, liar._ But he thinks other things as well, and feels them, because he knew Alex since they were in kindergarten and for all the years of fierce friendship that came between then and the other man’s ill-fated run for Mayor. He knows what Liv thinks of that too: that she admires Rafael’s loyalty, but here it’s misplaced. But he can’t help it. There’s no escaping his love for who Alex used to be, no more than there’s a chance of escaping Olivia now.

“Did you ever sneak out?” she asks. “I used to, all the time with my best friend in middle school.”

“Well isn’t _that_ interesting.” He’s sure she can hear his smirk. “Where did you go?”

“Mm, we tried to get into clubs a few different times. Bouncers never fell for it. We couldn’t figure out why because we had good fake IDs, but looking back we must have been _so_ obviously underage. Baby cheeks.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of you when you were young.”

“Oh, I can paint you a picture. Big perm, braces, the works. I didn’t wear makeup at school because I didn’t want people to notice me there, not really, but when that friend and I went out? The most garish lipstick you can imagine. And blue eyeshadow.”

Rafael grins at the pillow blocking her face. “Okay, I _definitely_ need a picture.”

“Only if I get one in return.”

“Oh, that’s too bad, there aren’t any,” he lilts with mock distress.

“Bullshit.”

“We weren’t a picture-taking family,” he says dryly, “and let’s just say I didn’t go to many school dances.”

“You mean you weren’t a charmer back in high school, Rafa?” she teases.

“Maybe I would have been if I ever took my nose out of a book. My friends did drag me to a club once. I hated it.”

“Hmm. We wouldn’t have gotten along back then, probably.”

“Well, given that I was ten years old when you were seventeen, probably not.”

“Shut _up,_ ” Olivia laughs, kicking at him from under the covers. “I always forget that I’m older than you until you rub it in.”

Her kick had been light and quick, more of a tap than anything, but his calf tingles where she’d touched it. “Why, because I’m so wise for my years?”

“No, because I’m so sprightly. More than _you,_ mister I-don’t-need-to-go-to-yoga.”

“I don't!” he protests. “It’s not like I’m down on my knees much anyway.” She snickers, and he can’t resist: “Not anymore, that is.”

She cackles, a loud and wonderful sound. “Rafael Mateo Barba! I thought you said you didn’t get out much.”

“Oh _yes_ , Olivia Margaret Benson, not in high school, but in college…” He trails off suggestively. “Ask Rita Calhoun, next time you see her. Actually, don’t. I like having your respect.”

“I absolutely _will_ ask her, and I will allow you to see one — _one_ — high school picture of me in exchange.”

“Deal.”

They fall into a contented silence until Rafael yawns loudly. Olivia giggles, which makes him do the same, and then they’re both giddy with laughter.

“Oh, we are going to be _so_ tired tomorrow morning,” Rafael groans as he catches his breath.

“I’ll get you an extra strong coffee,” Olivia promises. “And we could do this presentation in our sleep. You wrote me a nice introduction, right?”

“Wait, I’m supposed to introduce you?” He laughs when she props herself up on an elbow to glare at him over the pillows. “Just kidding. Yes, I wrote it on the train, it’s fine.”

“Alright,” she says, sinking back down. Absurdly, he misses the sight of her face. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Liv.” He falls asleep easily this time, and doesn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _These two._


	3. Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to up the rating for this one. Enjoy! >:)

****“These statistics,” Rafael concludes, pointing to the numbers projected behind him, “show that close police/prosecutor collaboration leads directly to higher conviction rates and lower rates of mistrials or cases being reopened down the line.”

He’s been talking for half an hour and the crowd is still engaged despite the early hour and the stuffy, windowless hotel ballroom-turned-lecture hall. He prides himself on being able to hold the attention of a jury for hours at a time, but an audience of three hundred-plus detectives, lawyers, criminologists, and legislators is something else. He feels pretty smug about his performance as he wraps up.

“Now that I’ve gone over why from the perspective of the DA’s office,” he says, “it’s my honor to introduce my colleague from the NYPD, Lieutenant Olivia Benson.”

He glances over to where she stands just offstage. She gives him a quick smile.

“Lieutenant Benson has been with the Manhattan Special Victims Unit for almost twenty years. Over that time she has brought justice to serial rapists, child and elder abusers, murderers, and even a few cult leaders.” That last part always gets a chuckle, and this audience is no exception. Dark humor for a grim profession, Rafael figures.

“She seeks that justice relentlessly, whether the perpetrator is a street gang foot soldier or a Fortune 500 CEO. I won’t say she’s tireless,” he continues, “because we all know how exhausting criminal justice work is. It gets down into your bones. Lieutenant Benson is exceptional because she never lets that exhaustion stop her.”

Rafael clears his throat. This introduction is longer than the one he used in their New York presentation; that one was abridged and given to an audience that mostly already knew Olivia, if only by reputation. This extended version he’d written on the train here without giving it much thought. He’d just scrawled out a professional description of who she is, how she’s good at her job, why other cops should follow her example. It had felt casual and matter-of-fact; he hadn’t written anything he hadn’t thought a hundred times before.

Saying the words out loud now, they don’t feel casual at all.

He can’t look at her. So he keeps his eyes on the audience, and forges onward.

“Another thing that makes Lieutenant Benson stand out is her advocacy for victims. In many precincts, perhaps even at yours, the default stance is to question or even blame those who come forward with rape and abuse allegations. _What were you wearing? Why did you let him buy you a drink? Why didn’t you leave him the first time he hit you? Why didn’t you fight back?_ ” Rafael feels his mouth twist and doesn’t bother to hide it. Let them see the judgment, the emotion. They should be upset about this too.

“At Manhattan SVU,” he informs them, “the mantra is _trust but verify._ That means victims are treated with respect and care the moment they walk through the door. They’re more comfortable reporting, more able to remember essential details, and more confident on the witness stand. Which also means more rapists and criminals behind bars. And that culture, of trusting victims and supporting them through the entire ordeal from disclosure to sentencing — that exists thanks to Lieutenant Benson.”

He turns the page on his speech and silently curses himself. There are three more paragraphs about her. Why didn’t he practice reading this aloud in advance and time himself? He’s pretty sure he’s going over already. And it only gets worse from here: his eyes catch on words like _passionate, heroic, wise, loving, incomparable... working with her, learning from her, has been the great honor and joy of my life..._

 _Christ,_ Rafael thinks distantly. _I wrote a fucking love letter._

He skips to the end. “Lieutenant Benson has been celebrated for her groundbreaking work many times, most recently by former Vice President Joe Biden for her efforts to end the backlog of rape kits in Manhattan. Without further ado: Lieutenant Olivia Benson.”

With a quick smile and nod to acknowledge the applause, Rafael gathers his notes and strides offstage.

“Thanks,” Olivia whispers as they pass each other, and then she’s begun her lecture.

As he watches the audience become enraptured by Olivia, Rafael carefully folds up the introduction he’d written for her and slides it into his breast pocket, where no one will ever see it except himself.

 

They’re both in great demand when the presentation is done. An ACLU lobbyist buttonholes Rafael to discuss how prosecutors deal with police corruption that makes it impossible to collaborate with the force. A California detective investigating a serial rapist/murderer from the 1970s and 80s gets Olivia’s attention; Rafael can overhear them discussing the merits of familial DNA testing and the importance of precincts sharing information across state and county lines.

The four of them end up getting lunch together and the conversation shifts to cold cases, and the logistics and ethics of investigating and prosecuting with scant evidence. It’s the kind of intellectually stimulating theoretical yet practical discussion that Rafael barely has time for anymore; between that and the sushi they’re eating he enjoys himself thoroughly.

“You should have dinner at Le Diplomate tonight,” the ACLU lawyer tells Rafael as they split the check. “Both of you. There’s a small fundraising dinner and I had to drop out so I have two extra tickets.” She names the New York senator for whose campaign the funds are being raised, and Rafael catches Olivia’s eye. She raises her eyebrows significantly.

“The senator won’t be there,” the lobbyist adds, “but her chief of staff will be. I’m sure she’d be very interested to hear about your work prosecuting rapists.” She inclines her head towards Olivia. “And catching them in the first place.”

“That’s extremely generous,” Rafael says. “Olivia and I have been following the senator’s efforts to improve military justice in sexual assault cases. We’d be honored to attend.”

 

As she exits the bathroom in her dress he starts praying they'll be seated apart: he knows he’ll have concentrating on anything else if she’s in his direct line of sight. It’s not that it’s revealing — in fact it’s fairly conservative, more than appropriate for the occasion — it’s just… Rafael’s not sure what it is, actually. Maybe it’s the way the boat neckline just barely exposes her collarbones, or how the slightly flared skirt accentuates the curve of her hips (which in turn reminds him of yesterday morning, seeing her half-naked, _don’t think about it_ he tells himself sternly). Maybe it’s that she’s a few inches taller than him in those heels. Rafael doesn’t know why that does things for him. He wishes it wouldn’t.

Maybe it’s just the color, he thinks, forcing himself to focus on the small desk mirror so he can tie his tie. The dress is a lovely blue, the color the sky might be if February on the East Coast wasn’t so dull and gray. _A sight for sore eyes,_ he thinks. The color of the dress, that is.

“You look nice,” he comments casually.

Olivia smiles. “Thanks.” Then she frowns at his hands where they’re looping the fabric smoothly around his collar. “You should pick out a different color tie.”

“Why?” This one is crimson, a nice pop of color along with his pocket square in an otherwise muted get-up (socks and suspenders aside, as they wouldn’t be visible).

“Red,” she explains. “You look like a Republican.”

He all but rips the silk from his neck.

“Throw in a flag pin and you could be a senator for the other side,” she observes.

Rafael glares at her. “Very funny. Very, very funny. See how I laugh.”

“It’s a compliment,” she grins. “I’m saying you look senatorial.”

“I’d prefer _not_ to look like the fan of a raging bigot,” he snips. He pulls open the top dresser drawer, where he’d put all his ties when he’d unpacked on Sunday. There are six of them coiled neatly in a row. For a moment he considers the blue — he’d match Olivia — but decides against it, because he’d match Olivia. He selects a green one instead, a pattern of closely interwoven vines of emerald and forest tones, and rolls up the red one resentfully. “I’m never going to be able to wear that again,” he complains.

“Maybe in 2020 when it’s safe,” she offers.

“Don’t count your chickens.” Rafael plucks out his pocket square, pulls off his jacket, and unclips his suspenders.

“You don’t need to change your entire outfit,” she says in amusement as he bends to unlace his Italian leather shoes. “No one’s going to know your suspenders and socks are red.”

“ _I’ll_ know.” It only takes him a few minutes to replace the red with green, during which time he mostly manages to ignore Olivia’s stolen glances at his partial state of undress. “There.” He tucks the new pocket square into place. “The look is complete.”

She applauds him. “Alright, let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”

“I’m never late,” he grumbles as they leave their room.

 

Dinner is even better than lunch, and they leave giddy on the possibility of federal funding to end New York City’s remaining backlog of rape kits. Only a few tens of thousands of dollars at the most, the senator’s chief of staff had warned, and only through an allocation that could go unnoticed by Republicans when buried in a much larger budget, but still. Still.

“This is a strange feeling,” Olivia says as they leave. “I haven’t felt hopeful about anything politics in I don’t know how long.”

“Since November?” Rafael suggests dryly. She snorts in agreement. “Well, I’m very impressed with us.” He shoots her a sideways smile. “Go to a fundraising dinner for free and manage to start the process to get our own funding? I think that’s worth celebrating.”

“A toast to the dream team. Let’s find a bar.”

They end up having more than one drink. They toast each other with wine, then the senator with cocktails, then the SVU squad with whisky, and after that the drinks start to run together. They get turned around when Rafael calls a Lyft and end up having to walk around the whole block, her arm around his shoulders so she doesn’t slip in her heels on the ice. It’s windy and partway around the block it starts to rain, but he’s not cold.

When they get back, Rafael is acutely aware of the fact that he’s stumbling drunk into a hotel room with Olivia Benson at midnight, and that their arms are linked, and that anyone watching them would think that they — and he wishes they’d be right — and he should be sad but he’s not, or at least not sad enough to stop grinning.

The room is clean, the bed made up. It looks soft and inviting, and Rafael only stops to take off his shoes, coat, and suit jacket before flopping down on his back.

“I’m still not tired,” he declares. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not either,” Olivia says.

He leans up on his elbows to watch her remove her heels and coat. She shakes out her hair too, and catches his eye as she combs her fingers through the wet, windswept tangles.

“If you don’t shut your mouth a fly you’re going to catch a fly.” She’s smirking, but there’s something wistful there too.

Rafael flushes. “Sorry.” _It’s just that I’m trying to figure out how you can be so ridiculously sexy even after the longest day and with your hair all messed up._

Olivia’s fingers catch in a snag and she winces.

“Here,” he says, sitting up all the way. “Let me.”

She hesitates, then comes over and sits on the edge of the bed. Clasps her hands in her lap. He scoots forward and crosses his legs so he’s not pressed up against her ( _don’t think about being pressed up against her,_ he scolds himself) and starts to untangle her hair with light, delicate touches. They sit in comfortable silence as he works, and when the tangles are all out somehow it feels like the most natural thing in the world to move on to massaging her scalp.

Olivia sighs and lets her head fall forward. “You’re good at this,” she murmurs. Rafael watches goosebumps raise across the back of her neck. He wants to kiss her there, just where her hairline ends. Instead he lets his hands go lower to massage her neck and shoulders; this earns him another long, contented sigh from Olivia.

He finds a particularly large knot and frowns. “Are your shoulders sore?”

“Yeah,” she says absently. “I think I slept on my neck funny.”

Rafael pauses the motion of his hands. “Not enough pillows?”

She laughs. “Actually, I think that’s exactly the problem.”

“Hmm.” He resumes the massage and tries to find any way to pretend that this problem isn’t an excuse, and that the solution he’s about to propose isn’t a bad idea.

There isn’t a way. He says it anyway. “Maybe we should dismantle the barrier.”

Olivia rolls her neck experimentally. “That feels so much better.” She turns to face him. He doesn’t scoot away. His hands end up resting lightly on her knees.

“I think you’re right,” she says. “I don’t want to undo your hard work by sleeping wrong again tonight.” She gives his right hand a friendly pat and moves to the middle of the bed. “Come on.”

Rafael follows her, suddenly giddy on her goosebumps and her good mood. And the alcohol. And the fact that there won’t be anything between them tonight. It’s almost too much. Starting from the bottom they begin flinging pillows up to the head of the bed.

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” he quotes, then giggles hysterically. Olivia throws a pillow at him. She’s laughing too, and she’s beautiful, and for a drunken moment he sways where he kneels, just looking at her.

“What?” she asks playfully, pausing with another pillow in her hand. She’s bright-eyed and flushed and happy. The skirt of her dress is spread around her, and as she rests back on her ankles it exposes an excruciatingly alluring stretch of thigh.

“Nothing,” Rafael says, but his mouth must be too drunk or stupid to get the message because it follows up with: “Just — you’re beautiful right now. Always.”

Olivia stares at him. She’s still holding the pillow. “You can’t just _say_ things like that.”

“Why not?”

She lets out an incredulous, angry little laugh. “Because you’re never going to _do_ anything about it.”

 _But god, I wish I could,_ he thinks. _And so do you, and…_ He tries to remind himself why they can’t — too many feelings, unprofessional, it’ll change their relationship — but will it? The feelings are already practically out in the open, so would it be so terrible if they finally acted on their mutual desire? He’s vaguely aware that his reasoning is flawed somehow but suddenly he’s too reckless to stop and figure it out.

“What — what if I did? Do something about it, I mean,” he asks. “What if we did. Just once.”

Her lips part slightly as she considers this. “You said it was enough to just be friends. That it has to be enough.”

“It does.”

“So we shouldn’t. Do that.”

“Maybe it’ll get it out of our system,” Rafael suggests. “And then… we can just pretend it never happened.” The logic of this, or lack thereof, is laughable even to his own drunken ears. But he wants it so badly, wants _her,_ he doesn’t know when the desire snuck up on him but it’s at full force now and he’s tired of fighting it, tired of keeping her at arm’s length. He _knows_ it’ll only make things more difficult and painful in the morning when they have to distance themselves again.

But right now it’s not morning. It’s night, and they’re in a hotel room in a city hundreds of miles from home, and what the hell.

“What the hell,” Olivia says, and she grabs his tie and pulls him over and kisses him.

It’s a hot, bruising kiss; she opens her mouth against his right away and he doesn’t hesitate to do the same, or to lace a hand through her hair to pull her closer, the other resting on her waist to keep them both steady.

“Wow,” he pants when they pause for breath. “You sure don’t waste any time.”

“I wasted six years,” Olivia counters. “Gotta catch up while I can.”

This just knocks the breath right out of him.

“Come on,” she says, nudging his shoulder. “You can’t be surprised.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “I didn’t realize it had been years for you too.” Rafael frowns. “You didn’t even _like_ me at first.”

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t want to sleep with you,” she shrugs, and leans in again.

“Oh yeah?” he asks between kisses. “And when exactly did you start wanting that?” Emboldened by her words, he drops his head to kiss her neck, and slips a hand high up under her skirt to grip the bare skin of her flank.

“Mm,” Olivia sighs. “Probably when you put that belt around your neck in the middle of court.”

She shoves at his shoulders until he’s flat on his back, then promptly straddles him. Rafael moans out loud when she grinds her hips down on his quickly hardening cock.

“And how long has it been for you?” she asks. He can feel himself twitch at the husky, amorous tone of her voice.

“Well…” he says as she starts at his shirt buttons, “I thought you were hot from the moment I saw you. Obviously.” She smirks. “But I managed not to think too much about that until, uh, until the Manor Hill case.”

Olivia pauses, which he’s glad of; it feels strange to be doing this with the memory of abused young students hanging between them.

“You were mad at me,” he says, powering through. “This was before I learned how to be, uh, sensitive.”

“Back when you were an asshole, you mean.” She resumes with his buttons.

He grins and squeezes her waist. “Yeah. Anyway, you came blazing into my office, talking about getting justice even if it wasn’t in a courtroom, all righteous fury, and I remember sitting there and thinking _God, I’m so fucked._ ”

Olivia raises an eyebrow. “That’s what does it for you?” She pushes his suspenders off his shoulders, then his shirt. His arms are trapped at his sides. “Me being mad at you?”

“Among other things.”

“Well that’s good,” she says, leaning down. Her hands are on his biceps and she rests her weight on them. Her mouth is so close to his that when she speaks their lips brush together. “Because I’m mad at you now.”

“I know,” he whispers. “I’m —”

“Do _not_ kill the mood by apologizing,” she warns. “Just enjoy it.”

Rafael laughs breathlessly. “Okay.” He wriggles free of his dress shirt and suspenders, and brings his hands up to her ass, pulls her down against himself. “The mood is very much alive,” he points out to her, raising his hips for emphasis so she can feel how hard he is.

“Yes,” Olivia hisses, and starts to pull down her underwear.

He bats her hands away. “That’s my job.”

“Hurry up and do it then, if — _oh,_ ” she gasps as he presses his palm upwards, under her skirt and through her underwear. Her head falls back, her neck a lovely arc, when he moves her panties to the side and slips a finger inside her without prelude. “Fuck. More.”

Rafael adds a second finger and she moans out loud. “Your hands are so big,” she says, almost to herself.

He smirks. “Wait until you see my —”

“Jesus, Rafa.” Olivia rolls her eyes. “That’s a terrible line.”

But her hands are at his belt anyway. For a moment they fumble to find a position that works, then she raises awkwardly on her knees so he can keep his hand _just so_ while she unbuttons his pants, draws down the fly, and —

“Oh.” She stares down at him. “You weren’t kidding.”

Rafael doesn’t even pretend not to be smug. “All for you,” he croons obnoxiously.

“Shut up.”

He gives her a wicked grin, and crooks his fingers inside her until her lips part and her eyes flutter closed. “Make me.”

“ _God,_ you’re so —” She opens her eyes, and real emotion threatens to shine through. She shakes her head and pulls him from his pants. “So insufferable,” she finishes, and starts jacking him off in slow, rough strokes. Just like he’d always tried not to imagine.

“Shit,” he gasps as her grip tightens. “Liv…”

She smacks his wrist with her free hand and he resumes his ministrations, adding the tip of a third finger just to see her jaw drop at the pleasurable stretch of it. For a moment she grinds down on his hand, then pushes it away so she can kick off her underwear and unzip her dress. She shoves his pants down to his thighs, his briefs too.

“Do you have a condom?” she asks belatedly.

“No,” he groans, dropping his hands from where they’d been going to push down her dress and unhook her bra. “Fuck.”

She’s undeterred. “Are you clean?”

“Yes.”

“Me too. And I’m too old to have kids.”

Rafael nearly blacks out at the prospect of being inside her with nothing between them, but manages to tease “I thought you didn’t like talking about how you’re the older woman.”

“Do you want this or not?” she demands, already starting to lower herself over him.

“Wait,” he protests, and she pauses. “Let’s take our time.” _We only have one night._ “I want to taste you, I want —”

“You can’t always get everything you want,” Olivia snaps, and suddenly her anger isn’t playful anymore. “You don’t _get_ to have everything, Rafael, not when…”

To his horror, he sees that she’s about to cry. “Hey,” he whispers, sitting up and wrapping his arms around her. The gravity of the mistake they’re making begins to settle on his shoulders, and even his horny, drunken brain isn’t too slow to realize that they’ve really fucked up. “Liv, sweetheart, it’s okay.” He cradles her closer and tries valiantly to ignore the friction of her ridden-up dress against his cock. “It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” she scoffs into his neck. “And don’t call me sweetheart.”

“Would you prefer ‘mistress’?” he asks, just to make her laugh.

It works. “No, but I do like it when you do what I tell you to. It’s such a nice change of pace.”

She draws back and he’s relieved to see that she’s dry-eyed.

“Well,” Rafael says. “I’m at your service.”

She rolls her eyes again, but any attempt at sarcasm of superiority fails when she hitches up her skirt and sinks down onto him. “Oh,” she sighs as he begins to fill her, “ _oh._ ”

It’s all he can do to keep his eyes open, but watching the expression on her face makes the effort more than worth it. And _god,_ the _feeling_ of her around him!

“You’re so beautiful,” he tells her. “So tight, god, you feel so good honey —” Her grip on his arms goes painful, and he knows it’s for the pet name. “Liv,” he amends, then finds he has to say it again, and again and again, because it’s _her,_ “Olivia, god, Liv…”

It’s for the best that she leans down and bites his lip, because he wasn’t going to be able to stop his babbling on his own.

“Careful,” he does manage to hiss, although the pain sends a shock of pleasure through his whole body. “Don’t leave a mark.”

“I won’t,” she says in annoyance, bearing down harder until he moans. “Not where anyone can see.”

She bites lower instead, through the fabric of his undershirt: bites his collarbone, his chest, his nipple (and again there, harder, when he whimpers). Rafael knows she’s doing this to punish him for the fact that he can’t — won’t? — be more than just her friend (with the glaring, heated exception of this moment). And it hurts, it does, but it feels so fucking good too as he bucks up harder into her.

Olivia shoves up his undershirt so she can scratch down his torso. Rafael lifts his arms to pull it off completely. It gets caught over his head and when he does manage to tug it off, she’s got a strange look on her face.

He remembers his scars.

There are only two of them. Thin white lines running parallel to his ribs on the left side, where the doctors had to cut into him to reset the bones his father had broken. Normally ribs have to heal on their own, the surgeon had said, but in this case there’d been a risk that the break was bad enough to puncture his lungs if left untreated.

At least that’s how Rafael remembers it. But it all happened such a long time ago, and he doesn’t like to remember at all if he can help it.

Thirty-six years ago. He’d been ten.

His father hadn’t meant to hurt him that badly. He’d been distraught. Didn’t lay a hand on Rafael or his mother for months. They thought maybe he’d changed. He hadn’t. It was that simple.

Olivia doesn’t ask. She just traces the scars gently with her fingertips, which then skim up his chest to rest on the small crucifix he wears on a fine gold chain around his neck. Another part of him she’s never seen.

Rafael swallows. _This is all far too intimate._

If they’re going to do this it has to be about letting off steam, acting on six years’ worth of repressed chemistry and lust, and nothing else. They’re giving in to their bodies, not their emotions. Then things can go back to normal — better, even, maybe, because it’ll be out of their systems; they’ll have checked that box and they can move on with no more talk of romance.

Rafael knows it won’t work that way. But at least he can try.

So he pushes himself up and interrupts whatever she’s thinking with a deep, dirty kiss, all teeth and tongue. _Stop looking at me like that,_ he tells her silently. _It’s not good for either of us._

Olivia cups his face in her hands, then grips his hair to pull him even closer. He tilts his head to kiss her more deeply. She pulls his hair. Hard. He makes a pained little noise against her mouth but doesn’t draw away, and when she clenches around him he moans.

The mix of pain and pleasure is exactly what Rafael needs: it reduces him to just his body, and his awareness just to hers, and he doesn’t have to think or worry or do anything but _feel_ , and please her. He caresses her breasts through her dress and she sighs approvingly, but doesn’t discard the garment when he unzips it and unhooks her bra. He contents himself with running his hands up and down her bare back. He can feel her muscles flex under his palms as she moves on top of him; he can feel how strong she is. She pulls his hair again and smiles when he hisses at the sensation.

Olivia leans back to look at him and this time her gaze is safe because it’s all desire. “You like that?” she murmurs, giving his hair another little tug.

Open-mouthed and breathless, Rafael stares up at her and nods. “Yeah.”

She’s stopped moving and he shifts restlessly. He doesn’t have much range of movement, trapped there between her thighs, and it’s some kind of wonderful torture to be inside her without being able to do anything about it. Going by the look on her face, Olivia knows this very well.

“What else do you like?” Her voice is husky and low and every thought Rafael has ever had flies out of his head. He gapes at her. “Come on,” she says. He gets the distinct impression that she’s mocking him. “I know you’ve thought about this before.”

“I — no, I haven’t let myself,” he says quickly. She pulls a fistful of hair at the nape of his neck, and his breath catches in his throat. “Have you?”

Olivia regards him silently. She’s hot and tight and wet around him and if she doesn’t start to move soon he’s going to cry from frustration.

“Yeah,” she says. “I didn’t — I didn’t think you’d be this, uh, vocal.” She’d been about to say something else, Rafael can tell. He’s relieved she didn’t.

He cocks an eyebrow. “And do you like it? Or do you really want me to shut up?”

She taps at his chin thoughtfully, and he ducks his head to suck her finger into his mouth. She watches his lips work with hooded eyes.

“No, I like it,” she answers. “Though I can also see the appeal in gagging you.” She removes her finger and traces it down his cheek. “Oh well.”

 _Maybe next time_ , Rafael thinks, but there can’t be a next time. Unless they go a second time tonight, maybe, and his cock twitches at the idea. Olivia feels it, and grins.

“You like that too?” she inquiries, watching him.

“I think you can tell I do,” he manages to reply.

She thumbs at the hollow in his throat. “Who would’ve thought you’d like to be bossed around in bed?” she muses.

“It sounds like you’ve given it plenty of thought,” he goads. “You don’t seem surprised by any of it.” _And I’m not surprised you like to take charge, though I can’t imagine how that went with Tucker or Cassidy_ . He shoves away the memory of them, and with it the jealousy that they got to be with her, _really_ be with her, while he can’t risk more than one night and shouldn’t even be doing that.

Olivia shrugs. “I guess I’m not.” She pinches the skin above his collarbone and Rafael twitches again, this time with an involuntary jerk of his hips. He’s so hard that staying still is starting to hurt. “Do you want something?” she asks innocently.

“Liv, come on.” He has to keep one hand on the bed to brace himself and remain sitting up, but he runs the other down her neck and back. She shivers, but doesn’t move otherwise. “Please.” He needs them to start moving, needs it so badly he can’t remember whose idea this was or how they began, just — “Please,” Rafael repeats, because she seems to like it when he says that, but she still doesn’t move and he finally realizes it’s a challenge.

So he moves. He manages to flip them gently so she’s on her back, and to do it without slipping out of her, and “Fuck, you feel so good,” he groans into her hair as he starts to thrust into her. In response she only moans and wraps her legs around him, high on his waist so he can reach deeper and suddenly she’s coming with a cry, gripping his ass so he keeps going, harder and faster and she turns her head and bites his arm and licks the sweat from his wrist.

“More,” Olivia commands, lips still pressed to his skin. He hikes her legs higher until she’s bent almost in half, one ankle over his shoulder and her dress bunched up around her middle, and he’s hitting her deep deep deep, and the obscene sound of skin slapping against skin fills their ears. “Yes,” she gasps, “Yes, right there right there right there right there oh, _oh_ ,” and she’s coming again — or maybe she never stopped — she clenches down around him so tight he cries out too.

Rafael has only three coherent thoughts:

_She feels so good, better than I tried to stop myself from imagining._

_I never want this to end._

_It has to end._

And one incoherent, tangled, inescapable understanding: _God, I love her._

“Olivia,” he groans, slowing his movement to keep himself from coming. He squeezes his eyes shut and she draws him into a long, messy kiss.

“Keep going,” she says hoarsely. “I want to feel you come inside me.”

Rafael swears at the electric jolt of desire this sends through him, and starts thrusting more quickly. “You — ” He stops himself from speaking, because there’s nothing safe to say. He can’t tell her she’s beautiful, or perfect or any of the adjectives he wants her to hear because he can’t make her hear that, not when they both know he’ll never be able to repeat them. His mind is foggy with pleasure and want but he grasps that much, even though the reasoning is beyond him at this point.

So Rafael adores her without words instead. He reaches a hand between them to find her slick, swollen clit. His fingers circle it, then rub hard. Olivia arches beneath him and comes a third time and he follows, follows her always, pulsing inside her with her name on his lips like a prayer. A plea. An apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The California detective is Paul Holes and the senator is Kirsten Gillibrand because I'm feeling self-indulgent.
> 
> If you too are upset about what Republican bigots are doing to this country (and you should be), consider donating to the [ACLU](https://www.aclu.org/donate-aclu?ms=web_horiz_nav_hp) or another organization (small local ones can usually do the most with your dollar), volunteering with [MoveOn](https://front.moveon.org/browse-campaigns/?utm_source=front&utm_content=nav), organizing with a local activist group, and/or taking some other action. 
> 
> also pls comment


	4. Wednesday, Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand we're back with more self-delusion, bad decisions, and unspoken emotions! :)

When Rafael wakes up, Olivia is nestled against him with her back to his chest. Their legs are aligned. His left arm is bent, with her head resting on his bicep and his hand against her hair. His right arm — she’s got both of her own wrapped around it, clasping his hand to her chest like a talisman. Rafael closes his eyes and wills himself not to cry. 

_ God, we fucked up, _ he thinks. He pulls her a little closer. He can feel a headache starting to develop behind his eyes. Too much alcohol, too much lust, and he never thought he’d be weak enough to let such petty factors overwhelm him into such a monumental mistake, but here they are. 

_ It’s because you’ve been wanting to make this mistake for years, _ his brain admonishes him. _ You were desperate for an excuse and you found one and now look where it’s gotten you. You stupid, selfish man.  _

He presses his face to Olivia’s head and inhales the scent of her. A hint of lavender shampoo remains, along with the smell of sex, but beneath that he can smell her. Just her. He takes another deep breath.  _ While I can.  _

Olivia shifts in his arms, and he freezes. He opens his eyes, though; he’s not going to pretend to be asleep. He’s not  _ that _ much of a coward. 

It seems to take a minute for Olivia to take stock of the situation. Once she does, she releases his arm. He hesitates, then pulls it back to his side. When she lifts her head and shifts away he retracts his other arm too, and half-rises onto his elbow. 

She swings her legs off the bed, walks to the bathroom, and shuts the door without looking at him. Rafael hears the lock turn. He lays on his back and stares at the ceiling. He tries to think of a way out of this that won’t break both their hearts. He can’t find one. 

When she’s done in the bathroom he takes it himself. The mirror is fogged with condensation from her shower. The tub is damp. Rafael strips off his pajamas and steps in, turning the water hotter than he normally does. He takes his time shaving afterwards, and as he dries his face he realizes he didn’t bring a change of clothes in. He doesn’t want to put the pajamas back on; they smell of sex and sweat and he only just got clean.

He pokes his head out the door. Olivia’s fully dressed, sitting on the bed and reading something on her phone.

“Hey, Liv?” He hesitates. “I, uh, left my clothes out there. Could you —”

“Just come out and change,” she says without looking up. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Her tone has a near-undetectable trace of dry humor.

“Okay,” Rafael says lamely. He feels terribly exposed in the morning light outside the drunken throes of passion, and dresses quickly. He turns around when he’s done to find her pacing.  _ Uh oh. _

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks tentatively.

Her lips flatten into a thin line. “I thought you wanted to pretend like it never happened.”

He runs a hand through his wet hair. “I mean. Yes.”  _ How the hell do we do that?  _ “I should call around,” he says after a moment. “Get a hotel.”

“No.” She says it so quickly the word is out before he can even finish saying “hotel.”

He stares at her. “But...” 

Olivia stares right back. She looks as confused as he imagines he does. 

“Maybe,” she starts, then shakes her head and stops. She shuts her eyes. “I want you to stay,” she tells him.

He wants to reach over and take her hands, but he knows if he does he won’t be able to let go. 

“Liv,” he says gently. “If I stay... I mean, do you really think we’ll be able to, uh. Not. Do it again?” He spreads his hands in a helpless little gesture. 

She opens her eyes. “Would it be so bad if we did?”

Rafael lets out a shaky breath. “Objectively? Yes. It was a mistake. We  _ should  _ pretend it never happened.”

“And if you’re not being objective?”

He licks his lips. “Then I only make excuses.”

She pulls her gaze from his mouth back up to his eyes. “Such as?”

His eyes dart nervously away until he makes himself look at her again. “Such as we’re in a different city, in circumstances that won’t be replicated again, and hotel rooms are kind of a non-place, you know, we’re really in this kind of liminal space we’ll never be able to re-enter, so… maybe it doesn’t really… count?”

“Liminal space,” she echoes. Then laughs. “You come up with the most literary excuses.”

“If by that you mean paper-thin.” He raises a self-deprecating eyebrow. 

“No,” Olivia says. “I mean, it’s true. We could pretend, here, right? And then we go back we really can reset. Back to normal.”

He laughs again. “As if I’ll be able to forget.”  _ The way you kissed me, the places I got to touch you. The way you sound when you come. The way you look.  _

She’s gazing at him like she can read his mind. Like she knows this is a bad idea. They’ve both always had a self-destructive streak. “ _ That _ damage is already done.”

There’s no denying that. 

“So, what?” he asks. “We just make the most of it?”

Olivia’s eyes go hard and determined and she closes the space between them with a single stride.  _ I really thought we were standing farther apart than that, _ Rafael thinks with mild surprise as she kisses him. 

She pulls back, hands looped through his suspenders. “Yes,” she answers. “Stay.”

He brushes his hand lightly through her hair, then skims his fingers across her cheek, down her neck, to her clavicle and then to her waist, where he grips her and pulls her close for another deep kiss. 

“Okay,” he whispers.  _ We’re only digging ourselves deeper. But how can I be expected to stop? _

 

They don’t stop. Now that they’ve decided to allow themselves more than just a taste, they’re insatiable. That night, after all the talks and workshops are done, they stay up until one in the morning, learning each other’s bodies in exquisite detail. He hesitates over her scars, which he’d only ever seen in evidence photos, until she drew his hand to them.

“It’s okay,” she says. He feels like a piece of shit for making her comfort him over her old wounds, so he leans down and kisses each one of them.  _ I love you,  _ he thinks.

On Thursday they exchange a single look during a long lecture by a suspiciously conservative Missouri police captain, and slip out together. Fifteen minutes later they’re fucking against the counter of their bathroom, eyes locked together in the mirror until Olivia has to look away and Rafael leans forward to bury his head in her neck to keep himself from saying something about it. 

They shower together once they’re done and he fingers her there; by the time Olivia comes he’s hard again and she strikes him dumb by pushing him against the wall, getting on her knees, and practically sucking the life from him. 

They shower again, languid and lazy this time. He shampoos her hair and rinses it clean. 

“You’re going to smell like me.” It’s a warning, but she sounds almost content. Almost.

“Lavender and Olivia,” Rafael murmurs, tracing rivulets of warm water down her back with his hand. He laps at the drops on her neck. “I don’t want to smell anything else.”  _ You’re gonna have to,  _ he reminds himself.  _ Don’t get used to it. _

Olivia leans back against his chest, tilts her face up, and kisses him. 

 

He dresses in the same clothes as before while she blow-dries her hair. She’s putting on makeup when he taps at the bathroom door. 

“I’m going to head to my next workshop,” he tells her. “I’m not waiting for you,” he adds with a teasing smile. “If we come down separately we won’t look so suspicious.”

An expression of pain flashes across her face almost too quickly to catch, but Rafael doesn’t miss it. His smile drops. She doesn’t want them to be a secret. She doesn’t want them to have to worry about what people suspect. She wants this to be real.  _ So do I, _ he thinks.  _ But it isn’t real, and it can’t be. It would destroy us.  _

Instead of saying anything, he leans over and gives her a soft, lingering kiss on the cheek. “See you at dinner?”

“Yeah,” she says. “See you.”

 

They end up getting room service. They sit on pillows on the floor with a towel spread out between them like a picnic blanket. They eat in comfortable silence until Olivia puts down her chopsticks.

“Shit.”

Rafael looks up warily. “What’s wrong?”

“I haven’t called Noah yet today. What time is it?”

He pulls out his phone. “Only eight.”

“Okay, great. Amanda should have finished giving him and Jesse dinner.”

Rafael pops a water chestnut into his mouth. “Lucy isn’t staying with him?”

“She was earlier this week, but Amanda has him from today until we get back. I didn’t want to overburden either of them.” She grimaces. “This is the longest I’ve ever been away from him.”

“I didn’t realize that.” Her uncharacteristic vulnerability makes more sense now, as does her willingness to be reckless with him. She misses her son but she’s out of “Mom mode” too.  _ That’s why she decided to broach the topic on Sunday,  _ he realizes.  _ It wasn’t just so she could corner me, it’s because it was the first time since the breakup she actually had time to do it. _

“Yeah,” Olivia says absently as she grabs her phone. “You wanna say hi to him?”

“Uh, sure.” He manages to stand on his own this time and pointedly ignores her amused look. She sits on the edge of the bed and he hesitates. “We should probably do this somewhere else,” he tells her. “We don’t want Rollins to know that we’re…”

“Oh. Right.” She glances around, then goes at sits at the desk at an angle that doesn’t show the bed in the background. It’ll still be obvious they’re in a hotel room, but less suggestive. There’s nothing odd about him visiting her room. Rafael pulls up the armchair so he’s next to her. 

If Rollins is surprised to see him when she answers the video call, she doesn’t show it. “Hey, you two,” is all she says. “How’s the conference?”

“Better than we expected,” Olivia replies with a smile. “A lot of the workshops are actually useful, and we’ve met some good people.”

“They must not be from D.C., then,” Rollins jokes, and Rafael lets out a dry laugh.

Rollins’ gaze flicks to him, her eyes on her screen rather than the camera so he gets the disconcerting feeling she’s looking at something he can’t see. “How about you, Barba, you enjoying yourself?”

“ _ Enjoy  _ is a strong word,” he answers, raising a sardonic eyebrow. “But yes, it’s interesting. I’m glad we came.” He steadfastly does not look at Olivia.

“Alright, well, I guess you want to talk to Noah?” Rollins smiles. She stands and Rafael gets a blurred view of her socked feet padding across her tiled kitchen floor, then a toy-strewn carpet. Then the sound of a light knock on what he assumes is the door to Jesse’s room.

“Hey Noah?” Rollins asked. “Your mommy’s on the phone for you.”

“Mama!” Noah shrieks. The screen goes dark as he fumbles to take the phone, and then they’re treated to a view of his forehead and Rollins’ ceiling. “Uncle Rafa!” Noah exclaims. “Hi!”

Olivia laughs. “Hey, Noah. Can you tilt the camera a little so we can see your sweet face?”

Noah lowers the phone and beams at them. Rafael’s chest feels dangerously close to overflowing with love. “Hey, buddy,” he says. “How is it at Auntie Amanda’s?”

“Good! Today after school we went to the aquarium and I saw a stingray and  _ three penguins _ and the seals were asleep but the aquarium person said sometimes they play with balls so I want to go back this weekend and see.” He’s still smiling, and Rafael notices a gap in his teeth.

Olivia sees it at the same time. “You lost your tooth!” she says with an exaggerated gasp. Rafael laughs. “Did that happen today?”

“Last night,” Noah answers proudly. “It got even looser than when we talked on the video, Mama, and then when I brushed my teeth it just fell out!” He seems to find this hysterical and can barely get the words out through his giggles. “Right into the sink! But I grabbed it and the Tooth Fairy came and gave me a dollar and I used it to get ice cream at the aquarium.”

“Only a little cone,” Rollins calls from off the screen. 

“Yeah it was really little,” Noah bemoans. 

“Well, it still sounds like you had a lot of fun.” Olivia is looking at him with such fondness, Rafael thinks before realizing he’s looking at  _ her  _ with fondness. He turns back to the screen.

“So Noah, what did you learn at the aquarium?” he asks.

The boy quickly launches into an explanation of how penguins lay eggs and migrate, most of which sounds accurate to Rafael although he’s no expert. 

“They’re my new favorite animal,” Noah declares, and Rafael makes a mental note to go to the Natural History Museum or the National Zoo before they leave and get a stuffed penguin for him.

“Well it sounds like they are very smart and brave to travel so far like that,” Rafael nods sagely. “I think that’s a good favorite animal.”

“What’s your favorite animal, Uncle Rafa?” 

Olivia watches with a grin as he tries to think of an answer. “Um, worms.”

Noah screeches with delighted laughter. “Not!”

“Okay, cockroaches.”

“Eeew, no  _ really _ !”

“Alright, alright.” Rafael strokes his chin with mock thoughtfulness. “Probably dogs.”

“That’s boring,” Noah says with great disappointment.

“Don’t say that, Frannie will hear you,” Rafael gasps. 

His eyes widen and he looks furtively behind him. “She’s in the other room,” he informs them with relief once he’s checked.

“Whew!” Olivia says for his benefit. “That was close.”

Noah returns to the topic with laser focus. “What’s your favorite animal, Mama?”

“I only get to pick one?”

“Yeah, that’s why it’s your  _ favorite, _ ” Noah explains with great patience.

“Alright, then I think it’s got to be an elephant.”

“Now who looks like a Republican,” Rafael says to her under his breath, just to annoy her in revenge for the loss of his red tie.

She rolls her eyes at him with quick efficiency and looks back at Noah.

“That’s a good one,” he says with solemn approval. “Elephants are smart and they’re also really nice. Like Eddie!”

“Well I’m glad you agree, sweet boy,” she smiles. “Maybe we can go to the zoo and see one after I get back.”

“Oooh,” Noah says. “Can Uncle Rafa come too? There are wolves there and those are like dogs.” He waits expectantly for a reply.

Rafael looks to Olivia for a cue, but she just raises her eyebrows and waits for him to respond.

“I would love to, Noah, if I have time.” He feels like an asshole for hedging, but tells himself that it’s for the best not to raise the kid’s expectations if he’s only going to let him down.  _ And why are you acting differently with his mother, then?  _ he asks himself. 

But that’s not the same. He’s said repeatedly that this will end once they get back to New York. There will be no surprise, no letdown. They’re on the same page. It’s okay.  _ Bullshit,  _ the most honest part of his mind tells him. He ignores it.

Rafael’s lack of commitment doesn’t seem to bother Noah, if he even noticed. “Okay!” he says cheerfully. Rollins’ muffled voice says something, maybe from another room. “Auntie Amanda wants me to go to bed soon,” Noah tells them.

“Alright,” Olivia says, “well you listen and be good for her, okay? Sweet dreams, sweetie. Sleep tight.”

“You too!” The screen becomes a blur again as Noah trots over to Rollins. “Love you Mama, love you Uncle Rafa!” he says, turning their view half-pink as his hand slips over the camera.

“We love you too, Noah,” Olivia tells him.

Rafael clears his throat and excuses himself to the bathroom as she confers with Rollins, making sure Noah is behaving well and then catching up on the squad’s casework. He stalls for time by rearranging his toiletries by height in a neat line, then re-re-arranging by category. He catches his own eye in the bathroom mirror. 

_ You’d be a good father _ , she’d almost said yesterday.

He looks away from his reflection, feeling guilty.

By the time he returns, Olivia is off the phone. To his relief, she doesn’t say anything about his rapport with Noah, opting instead to fill him in about an ongoing investigation of an elder abuse case. They finish dinner over this conversation, and somehow during that time Olivia ends up cuddled against Rafael. 

He toys with her hair as they fall into silence, and watches as her hand creeps slowly from his knee up his thigh. He’s already started to get hard from anticipation by the time she cups his cock through his pants.

They leave the empty containers on the floor.

“I’ll clean them up later,” Rafael promises between heated kisses, and then he’s between her thighs and they’re both beyond words. 

 

Later, when she’s half-asleep, he does clean up. Moves quiet as he can through the room to set them in the trash; folds up the towel and leaves it on the bathroom counter to be washed by the maids tomorrow. 

Olivia is asleep by the time he crawls into bed. Rafael wraps his arms around her and closes his eyes.  _ Greedy,  _ he thinks of himself. She stirs, moves closer, and slips back into a deep slumber. He tries not to remember how tomorrow is their last full day here, and how after that it’s back to New York, back to arm’s length and lonely nights. He tries not to think about how much he loves her. He tries not to think about how much she loves him. How much he’s hurting her. How stupid it is to let himself hold her like this. 

He holds her closer. He doesn’t let go all night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the fic is pretty much all written, pending a few revisions, so chapters should come quickly after this! In the meantime thank you for all the comments. They really make me smile and help me stay excited about the writing process. <3


	5. Friday, Saturday

On their last full day they don’t even try to restrain themselves. They don’t spend more than a few moments apart. The conference ends at noon and they go straight to the National Zoo afterwards so Olivia can get a few souvenirs for Noah. While she’s checking out an exhibit next to the gift shop, Rafael slips away to get a couple things too. He puts them into his bag without saying anything to her. Somehow he feels it’s not his place to get Noah a present. He tries not to think about it.

They go back to the hotel room afterwards and fuck, long and slow, on top of the freshly laundered sheets. Her body is soft with the lights on and sunlight filtering in through the sheer curtains. She still won’t let him go down on her and he doesn’t ask or attempt. He tries to content himself with licking his fingers after they’ve been inside her, but it’s a poor substitute. He wishes this was real. He wishes wanting to bury his face between her thighs was the only reason he wishes this was real.

They shower together. Rafael takes longer blow-drying and styling his hair afterwards than she does. As soon as he emerges from the bathroom Olivia runs her hand through his gelled coif and musses it. He makes a moue. She’s unrepentant. 

By now they’re hungry, so they go down to U Street to find a bar. There are too many young people dressed for clubbing even though it’s only six. They feel out of place, and after a drink and a burger each they make their retreat. It’s dark outside, but not too cold.

“Do you want to see the monuments?” Rafael asks. “They’re supposed to be beautiful at night. All lit up.”

“Sure,” she smiles. 

He’s seen Olivia smile and laugh more in the past week than he ever has before.

He’s seen her cry more, too.

The monuments are indeed beautiful. They share a moment over the thought of Sally Hemings at the Jefferson Memorial, and move on to linger beneath Lincoln’s high-up gaze as they stand on his steps and gaze out at the Reflecting Pool. There are a few dozen other tourists around, chattering in low voices and taking pictures. Rafael pulls Olivia a little closer. He doesn’t know what to say. 

They stand in silence for a long time.

_ I love you,  _ he thinks. The whole weight of the country is pressing around them. A dead man in marble looming behind, a reminder of times even worse than these bad ones. A reminder that the country prevailed, Rafael supposes, but he doesn’t feel hopeful, not right now. He ducks his head.

Olivia turns in his arms. “What’s wrong?” she murmurs.  _ Besides the fact that tomorrow this is over.  _ She doesn’t need to say that part out loud.

He shakes his head. “Sometimes I feel…” He sucks his cheek between his teeth, then exhales. “This awful sense of dread. Doom.” He cracks a smile. “Very dramatic.”

She doesn’t return the smile. “You’re not one to give up on things.”

Rafael faces forward again, but doesn’t drop his arm from her waist. He can just barely feel her body heat through the cold shell of her thick winter coat. “I’m talking about politics, Liv.”

“I know.”

They wander around some more, reluctant to go back to the hotel and admit that the night has ended. There’s frost on the grass. The long wall of the Vietnam dead stretches out too far. The tourist groups have thinned out. Rafael feels like they’re walking through crowds of ghosts. Olivia squeezes his hand.  _ No one knows us here,  _ he thinks, squeezing back.  _ We could be anyone.  _ He feels utterly untethered. It feels a bit like vertigo. 

They end up at the Roosevelt monument. All the water features have been turned off, whether for the night or for the winter Rafael doesn’t know. It’s quiet. The wall behind Eleanor’s statue is engraved with the words “First United States Delegate to the United Nations.”

“Not just ‘First Lady,’” Olivia comments. “I like that.”

He hums in assent. He could make some comment about strong women getting the credit they’re due, but he can’t think of a way to word it that isn’t trite. And  _ you deserve a statue  _ is true but unutterable. He kisses her instead. Her lips are cold. So is her hand when she lifts it to brush ever so lightly across his cheek. 

It’s the first time they’ve kissed outside. Anyone could see, but no one does. They don’t do it again.

 

At eleven they give up and go back to the hotel. They undress each other with chilled hands, each touch acute. When they fall into bed, they do it gently. They lie on their sides facing each other like they did earlier that week, but this time with almost nothing in between: not pillows, not clothes. Just a few inches of air and unspoken words.

Rafael wants to speak them. 

Olivia burrows close to him. “I would miss you,” she murmurs.  _ Not like Ed. _ He can feel the breath of her words against his neck. Warm, but it gives him goosebumps. “If you ever left.” 

She can’t say it, but she doesn’t have to. He can hear her.  _ Don’t leave me. Please. It would break my heart. _ Rafael can hear it in himself too, some part of him saying the same thing. 

He shifts and gathers her closer. Her cheek against his shoulder. He presses his lips against the top of her head. Shuts his eyes, inhales the scent of her. 

“I’m not going anywhere, not really,” Rafael tells her (and himself). He traces the curve of her jaw with his fingertips and she raises her face to look at him.  _ Beautiful _ . “You’re my best friend, Liv. I would miss you too.”

Olivia kisses his chest. Then his neck. Sweet, closed-mouth kisses. “You won’t have to.”

_ We’re too good at lying to each other,  _ he thinks.

He leans back and touches her lips, feather-light. “Vulnerable and honest, right?” he asks. She nods before taking his hand and kissing his wrist, but he catches her face and turns it towards himself again. He doesn’t let himself hesitate. It’s been so many long, long years. He’s never going to get another chance to say it. “I love you.”

And oh, oh, her  _ smile _ . 

It’s one Rafael has never seen before, beautiful like nothing else in the world. For one radiant moment he thinks:  _ we could do this, we could make this work. I could see that smile every day. _

When he reminds himself he’s wrong, the pain of it should be a knife in his heart — except she’s still smiling and he can’t help but smile back. A grin, a big lopsided goofy grin, and Olivia’s grows impossibly brighter. 

“I love you too,” she says. She takes his face in her hands and kisses him again, on the lips this time, and deeply. Mouth open, wet, and hot. Rafael is panting and hard by the time she pulls away. “I want you inside me again,” she tells him, all at once desperate. “I want to be as close to you as I can.”

There’s a lump in his throat all of a sudden and it hurts to speak. “Last time,” he reminds her in a hoarse whisper.

“I know, Rafa.” Olivia kisses him, then bites his lip  _ hard.  _ “I want to leave a mark on you.”

“Yes,” he says breathlessly. “Please. All over.”  _ I want proof that this happened, I want hickeys and scratches and bruises that will last.  _ He considers asking her to break skin but he thinks she might not like that, not right now, so instead he gives himself over to her hands. Her tongue, her teeth. “Olivia,” he whispers when she bites his inner thigh. She’s too far away. He tugs her back up and kisses her too tenderly.

She runs her hand down his face, his neck, and lets it rest over his heart. “I’m still so mad at you,” she tells him. She reaches between them with her free hand and grips his cock. “At myself, too, you know.” She gives it a few pumps and he raises his hips, chasing the feeling. “I know better than this,” she says almost to herself as she lowers onto him.

He pushes himself into a sitting position, like the first time they did this and he stopped her from crying. She’s not even close to crying now but he wants to hold her tighter anyway.  _ But there’s nothing better than this to know,  _ he thinks miserably.  _ This is as good as it gets for us. _

“Don’t be mad,” he says, knowing it’s useless. He grips her waist to help her move. “Liv. At least we got this, right?” He hates himself.

“We’ll always have Paris?” she quotes sarcastically. “You know how that movie ends. They never see each other again.” Her breath catches in her throat when he moves up and pulls her down at the same time, hitting deeper. 

He dips his head and licks her nipple, mouths wetly at her breast. He wants all of her.  _ I’m far too greedy,  _ he thinks. And:  _ we’re not like them. You’re not leaving me to get on a plane with some other, better man. Maybe you should.  _ He’s disgusted by his own self-pity.

“I know,” he whispers. For a few minutes they move against each other in silence except for their own labored breaths. “I don’t know,” he gasps out as he gets close. “I’m sorry. Liv.”

“Stop,” she tells him. “You don’t get to say that.”

_ But we were just smiling,  _ Rafael thinks helplessly. Stupidly. Selfishly.  _ I told you I loved you, and you smiled.  _ Her face is a folded grimace now as she rides him faster, trying to come.  _ And now it’s almost over.  _ That sense of vertigo is back. Everything is a mess of confusion and contradiction, too many emotions too quickly.  _ I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know what we’ve done. You feel so good, but my chest hurts. _

Olivia comes with a broken-off cry and he finishes only moments after. It’s a muted orgasm and as he slips out of her he feels cold, somehow unsated and not hungry at the same time.  _ You’re sad,  _ he has to explain to himself.  _ You idiot. _

When they’re both done with the bathroom they curl up next to each other in bed. They don’t kiss again, but they hold each other close.

 

They sit apart on the Saturday morning train back to New York. They don’t have to discuss it: they just silently take their seats and don’t speak for the entire ride. Olivia takes a spot a few rows in front of Rafael, and when she leans her head against the window he can see a portion of the back of her head. The fall of her hair.

He allows himself this view until the train reaches full speed, and then he looks out the window. Baltimore blurs past, then Philadelphia, and then they’re approaching Penn Station and it’s over. Really over.

He keeps a safe distance from her as they exit the train.

When they get to the street she stops and looks at him. He shifts on his feet. “So I’ll see you Monday, then,” he says.

Olivia nods. He realizes she’s looking just to the left of his face. She can’t meet his eyes. Her own expression is set.

“Yep,” she confirms.

“And we won’t  — ”

“Nope.” She hikes her duffel bag further onto her shoulder. “Never happened, right?”

“Right.” Rafael exhales slowly. This is how it should be. This is easier. It’s a relief that they’re on the same page, really.

He doesn’t ask himself why it hurts despite all that. He knows.

“Okay,” she says. “I’m gonna get a cab.” When she does, he restrains himself from opening the door for her or helping with her bags, even though he knows he would have done so back before D.C.  _ Better to hold back for a while until things feel normal again,  _ he thinks.  _ Then we can let ourselves relax. _

“Bye,” he says, but she’s already shut the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the fic is completely written, so I'm probably gonna post the last two chapters over the next two days. Let me know what you think in the meantime! :}


	6. One week later

Of course, of course, things don’t go back to normal. Rafael can barely look at her, and Olivia’s face is blank and cold whenever he does. D.C. feels simultaneously unreal and present like a rock in his stomach, a blade at his throat, an ever-shifting unruly metaphor for a feeling he can’t pin down except to say _it hurts, and it’s my fault._

He avoids Forlini’s. He hopes she’s avoiding it too. He hates the idea that she might be waiting for him. More than that, he hates that it makes him resentful of her when he images that she is. _My fault, not hers,_ he reminds himself over and over. It takes him a while — nearly a week — to realize that when he’s mad at her he’s really just mad at himself.

Maybe he does need a real therapist. Maybe he needs to get out more. Go on a date with someone who isn’t her. Maybe he needs to resign himself to bachelorhood, which never seemed so bad before. Of course it had hurt, but the pain was dull until he went ahead and sharpened it himself, hurting them both in the process.

He avoids her office too, and Olivia avoids his. She sends Carisi to get warrants, Rollins to coach victims, Fin to deliver and go over evidence. The detectives are wary with him; they know something’s wrong. He doesn’t snap at them even once. This only seems to make them more nervous. _Everything is thrown off balance,_ Rafael thinks. _My fault, my fault._ Except it’s all proof he was right the whole time. It never would have worked out. _My fault, but I was right._ That’s no solace.

He misses her so much.

 

He misses her, but when she comes to his office late Friday afternoon he wants nothing more than to escape.

“I’m just heading out,” he says, standing to gather his things.

“You just poured yourself a cup of coffee,” she corrects him. “You weren’t about to leave.”

He drums his fingers against his own palm, and forces himself to come out from behind the shield of his desk. He leans against it instead, facing her, trying to appear casual. “What do you need?” he asks. He hopes it sounds like he’s talking about work, because he is.

She hesitates, then turns and closes his office door.

_Fuck._

All at once he feels like he’s back in that hotel room last Monday, cornered into a conversation he desperately doesn’t want to have. Except this time they really _can’t_ have it, and they shouldn’t need to anyway — they’ve said everything, they’ve certainly _done_ nearly everything, and all it’s amounted to is a pile of evidence that he’s quite capable of destroying whatever romance they might ever be foolish enough to try to build. There’s nothing left to talk about. _Please don’t make me talk about it._

“I need to apologize,” Olivia says.

He gapes. “What?”

“I think...” Olivia looks away. When next she speaks her voice has dropped into a whisper, that soft desperate voice she has when she’s trying so hard not to cry. It’s all Rafael can do not to take her hand. He’s reeling from the shock that _she’s_ apologizing to _him._

“I think,” she repeats, “that one of the reasons I agreed to — to do what we did in D.C. — I just.” She covers her face and Rafael blinks furiously. He refuses to cry. He will _not_ make her comfort him.

“I thought that if I, I don’t know, I thought that if I could somehow use that time to show you what you were missing, what we could be, that by the end of the week you’d change your mind and you’d want me. And when you called me sweetheart, honey, whatever, I thought it was working. Even though I told you not to say it.” She drops her hands and shakes her head with a bitter smile. “I gave it all I had and you didn’t change your mind, so I — it wasn’t enough. You were right.”

She says it with no hint of malice or anger. Just an incredulous, self-mocking tone that sends Rafael’s heart to the depths of his chest where it tries vainly to hide from the hurt it’s caused.

“Liv,” he whispers. “No, that’s not it.”

She laughs again. “It’s ok. It’s not your fault, Rafael. You were _very_ clear the whole time that it had to end after D.C. It was my fault. I agreed to one thing and secretly hoped for the opposite and it didn’t work out. I can’t keep holding that against you.” She brushes her hair from her face in a forced, businesslike manner. “That’s all. I just needed to say it.” She moves to go.

Rafael catches her arm and pulls her back.

“No,” he repeats. He retracts his hand once he’s gotten her full attention. He rests it on his knee and puts his other hand over it, holding himself back from touching her again. “Liv,” he says, “it’s not that you’re not enough. Please believe me.”

She’s listening, but she won’t meet his eye. She’s gazing off to the side of his face instead with an ironic, self-deprecating look on her face. An “I know I’m a fool, it’s okay, it’s funny, you don’t have to rub it in” quirk of her lips. Rafael hates it.

“You’re more than enough,” he tells her. “You’re everything. That’s why I can’t let us go down that road, even though I want it more than anything.” _God, even now my heart is like a starving animal, it’s clawing and desperate and it wants you so badly but I can’t. I can’t, I can’t. But I know I can tame it again and then we’ll be okay._

She’s looking right at him now and her gaze is steady. Somehow _I have to apologize_ has shifted into something unapologetic. Maybe mad. “More than anything except what?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he says vehemently. The warning signs don’t matter: she can’t think she doesn’t matter, he can’t let her go on thinking it. “I mean it, there is _nothing_ I want more, not even this job.” It’s the first time he’s said it out loud and he’s shocked to hear that it’s true.

No time for that now. He has to make her understand, though she’s looking more angry with every word.

“But I can’t do it, Liv.” He bites down on his inner cheek, hard. “I can’t because I don’t know how.” And now he’s wearing a desperate little smile, he can feel it, that unbelieving this-can’t-be-real smile he gets when his face doesn’t know what else to do.

He forces himself to continue. To pin down irrefutable specifics. “I don’t know how to be a boyfriend, Olivia, let alone a husband or a father. I’m barely a good friend — _no_ ,” he interrupts when she tries to contradict him. “No, I _barely_ see you outside of work, I don’t even know how to help when you’re really hurting, and _god_ , I let myself pretend that sleeping with you wasn’t the most emotionally irresponsible and cruel thing I could have possibly done when I knew it would never lead to anything more.

“And I can’t even get started on the idea of me trying to be a father, I mean, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Maybe if I were younger I could learn but it’s too late, Liv, I can’t make you and Noah my — my guinea pigs or — I’ll fuck up and it will be _bad_ , it’ll be really, really bad. It’ll hurt you and him and then _there_ goes our friendship, there goes our working relationship, there goes my ability to ever work with Manhattan SVU again, there goes everything. It would destroy _everything_. I can’t let that happen.”

Rafael is out of breath by the time he finishes and realizes he’d barely inhaled throughout that whole speech. He forces in deep breaths now, just as he forces himself not to look away from Olivia.

Her grief, he sees with both relief and terror, really has turned to anger. Cold and hard.

“So let me get this straight,” she says with the slow, sarcastic clarity she uses when making a show of catching suspects in their contradictions and lies. “You’re so afraid of not having me that you refuse to have me. And if you tried to be a partner to me and a father figure to Noah, he and I would just be helpless guinea pigs at the mercy of your mistakes. And you’d be solely responsible because you’d be on your own in all of this with no one to guide you or help you.”

“I can’t ask you to teach me to be a good partner or father, Liv,” he says softly. “It’s not even possible. And it’s not fair to you.”

“Not fair to me?!” She turns abruptly and strides across his office. He can tell by her posture that she’s glaring at the wall; after a moment she wheels around and that glare is leveled on him.

“ _I_ get to decide what is or isn’t fair to me, Rafael. _Me._ Not you. And don’t give me some bullshit about how you’re too old to learn or you can’t because you never had good role models. _You_ know who my parents were. You know how old I was when I found my son. If I could do it, so can you, if you’d stop with these weak excuses and actually fucking tried. You’re not a coward, Rafa, and I’ve never seen you run from a fight and for the life of me I can’t understand why this time is different.”

She makes a sharp jerking movement with her head when he opens his mouth to explain, and he stops.

“I know you love me.” Olivia’s voice is deadly furious. “You told me yourself and I’m not ever going to forget that. You’d better believe that if you walk away from this now I will hold it against you for the rest of our lives, so don’t tell yourself you’re saving me any pain or keeping our relationship, I don’t know, simple, or _easy_ , by making me pretend with you that everything can be like it was before. It won’t ever be like before, not ever again.”

She closes her eyes briefly and Rafael sees the effort it takes for her to pull herself together, to not break down. He wants to go to her. To hold her. _But I have no right to do that,_ he thinks. _I don’t get to touch her anymore._ And: _god, how did we get here? How did I let us get here?_

Olivia opens her eyes and they’re hard again. “Now me,” she continues, “me, I think that’s for the best. At least we’re being honest now. But I need you to do more than that. I need you to be more. For me. To me. I _know_ that you can. It won’t be perfect but that’s okay, Rafa, we — ” her voice is on the edge of pleading and she stops herself.

“We can work through it together,” she says, schooling her tone into something brisk and blunt. “And that’s all I have to say, Rafa, because I’ve spent two weeks baring my heart and it’s started to feel an awful lot like begging, so you just tell me when you make up your mind and we can either become something more, or something a hell of a lot less than what we had before D.C.”

 _Unstoppable force, immovable object,_ Rafael thinks as he looks at the fire in Olivia’s eyes. _It would be so easy to give in. Or it would at first. And then…_

He opens his mouth to tell her it’s impossible and beg her forgiveness.

“I have to think about it” is what he says instead, with such softness he feels like he’s leading her on again. Except, to his horror and frustration, he finds that he means it. The answer isn’t a simple no anymore. Maybe it’s a complicated no. But he has to think about it.

Olivia’s lips are a thin line. Selfishly, he wishes she were happy with his answer, though of course she’d have no reason to be. All he’s given her is time to build up more hopes he can dash.

“Fine.” Her voice is flat, with none of the tenderness he’d used and all of the certainty. “But don’t take too long, Rafael.”

 

That night, in his empty apartment, he pours himself a scotch and thinks it over.

The idea of being a husband and father — once he stops laughing at himself for leaping so far ahead, and reeling at the fact that she hadn’t contradicted him when he did — the idea is like a bottomless expanse of dark water with an undercurrent waiting to pull him down into a panic attack, or worse, if he considers it too long.

He clasps the chilled scotch glass in his hands. _So don’t think about it like that,_ he instructs himself. _Think about it like a regular problem._

Relief comes to him the moment he remembers how terrified he used to get taking on a case. A different type of terror, yes, but similar in the blind panic and overwhelming intimidation at the prospect of a monumental, seemingly impossible task.

And then he’d do what his law school advisor had taught him: break it down into manageable pieces. Ignore the impossible whole. Focus on the individual parts. And when you’re done with them, everything will come together and it will be yours.

 _Of course my version of a therapist is a lawyer,_ he thinks with amusement.

Okay. Manageable pieces.

He tries to imagine a just single day in that life.

 _Wake up next to Olivia._ Yes. Good.

 _Get up, get dressed, worry later about finding enough closet space for all her clothes and mine._ Okay. Yes.

His mind falters at breakfast with Noah, but he pushes through that. He’s shared plenty of meals with him as Uncle Rafa. He’s had practice. He’s not scared of the boy like he used to be when Noah was a baby and Rafael didn’t even know how to hold him. _I’m scared of the_ **_idea_ ** _of a son,_ he tells himself. _Not of Noah._ He hopes it’s true.

He’s not sure of the logistics next. Does Lucy take Noah to school, or does Olivia? Do they trade off? What time does all of this happen? _Doesn’t matter,_ he tells himself firmly. _The point is you can drop him at school if you need to._ Visions of PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences and impossible time commitments, of missing music recitals and Little League games because he’s too busy, loom threateningly in his mind. He shoves them away. _One day at a time._

Next is work. They’ll have to disclose but there’s procedure for that. The prospect of mountains of paperwork doesn’t scare him, not in comparison to the rest of it. _And if I have to change jobs?_ he thinks (because asking Olivia to do that is unthinkable, senseless too; she should never leave unless or until she wants to, and she doesn’t want to, not yet). He reminds himself that he loves her more than the job.

So leave that for later, Rafael decides; don’t worry about transferring or finding other work. _One day at a time._

He skips over the comforting familiarity that is the very idea of a workday — even a workday in sex crimes — and comes to the afternoon. Here again he’s unsure. He knows that late nights would be off the table, but what constitutes late? He has a vague idea that elementary school days end at three, but then there are extracurriculars and Lucy, and Olivia certainly never leaves until five at the very earliest.

Five or six, Rafael decides. _And worst case scenario she and I can trade off on taking late nights. I can bring work home too as long as I’m careful not to leave anything where Noah can find it._

His mind catches on the fact that he’s calling her apartment home. He pushes past that.

Dinner. Family dinner. Same as breakfast except for the food, and more time, and more to talk about. Rafael balks: he knows how to have short conversations with Noah once every few weeks, but an hour over dinner every night? What could he possibly offer to Noah?

 _Olivia does it,_ he reminds himself. _Follow her lead. Follow Noah’s too. He’s a chatty kid. He likes when you listen._

Okay. Dinner, then do the dishes, then what? He taps at his glass with a blunt fingernail. Help Noah with homework? He used to tutor classmates all the time. He taught Eddie to speak, read, and write English, and sure Eddie was a peer and not his child but Rafael figures that if he had the patience to deal with that when he was six years old, he can handle helping Noah learn the names of shapes or whatever it is that kindergarteners do. Kindergarten? He pauses. Or is Noah in first grade? He shakes his head. Either way, it’ll be fine. _It’s fine._

Next Noah would shower, he guesses, then to bed. _I’ll read to him,_ Rafael thinks, and something dangerously close to happiness blooms in his chest at the idea. He reads to Noah plenty already, but to do it as a — as more than an uncle, he thinks, because right now the word “father” takes him back down where his own father lurks somewhere — to read to him like that. Rafael would like that.

Next, Noah’s asleep. Then it’s him and Olivia, and the rest is easy.

Rafael sits there, stunned. _I can do that,_ he thinks, and suddenly he’s dizzy with giddiness. _I can do all of that. I would love it. I —_

_I cheated._

The happiness disappears under dark water.

 _You can’t just imagine a perfect day and pronounce the whole idea to be good and doable,_ Rafael reminds himself viciously. _You delusional idiot._

He closes his eyes and tries to be more realistic. What will he do when Noah throws a temper tantrum? Or does poorly in school? What will he do as that sweet little boy gets older and starts to rebel?

 _Figure it out with Olivia,_ he thinks, but it’s not that simple. Rafael hasn’t raised a fist in anger since he was seventeen years old, but he’s never had to deal with a screaming child day in and day out and all he knows about fathers and screaming children is that — but he can’t imagine it. The very idea of hitting Noah sends bile to his throat and he knows he would never, ever do it.

But yelling at the boy? _Yes, I might do that,_ he thinks with disgust for himself. He can imagine screaming matches with a teenage Noah. Phone confiscated, or a location tracker put in it even. The door to Noah’s room taken off its hinges — _no,_ he corrects himself at this last part, _that’s what my father did and it’s not what I would do. It’s not._ But the rest of it? He thinks he’s capable of it.

 _Fathers aren’t the only role models,_ Rafael reminds himself before he starts to completely wallow in self-hatred. _I have Olivia as a model parent, and Mami once she left Papá, and Rollins and even Carisi and Fin could teach me a thing or two about dealing with kids. I’m not on my own. I’m not._

He takes a breath.

_But what if I don’t have Olivia?_

The fear surges back when he pictures their fights, because these he _does_ have first-hand experience with. He can’t imagine what it would have been like to have to live with her during the Terrence Reynolds case, to share a space and keep up a cheery act for Noah. He’d been so coldly furious with her for those long weeks. Even now his temper flares at the thin blue line bullshit she’s capable of, the steadfast, willful ignorance of it.

What if there was another shooting and she refused to condemn the cops responsible? _What if,_ he thinks bitterly. _As if it doesn’t happen every damn day._ But then again, it doesn’t happen every day that cops in her precinct are the ones pulling the trigger.

 _So, what?_ he thinks, _the fights are just less frequent?_ His mouth twists bitterly. _She never actually defended them,_ he reminds himself. _Right. She only blamed you when you forced her into testifying against them._

And then she made amends.

Rafael remembers that day in his office. She’d been the one to offer an olive branch, and he’d taken it, and then they were okay.

_Okay._

_Except we can’t afford to take weeks to reconcile if we live together, if we’re raising Noah together._

Rafael stares at his scotch and realizes he hasn’t had even a sip. He sets it in the coffee table and then tucks his legs under himself and leans further back into the couch, the better to frown off into the distance as he thinks.

_Am I really going to pass up being with Olivia because of fights with Olivia?_

The idea seems ridiculous when he puts it like that, but it’s not that simple. It’s easier to bounce back from a fight with a friend, even if it’s your best friend, than it is from a partner or a lover. He’s seeing that now.

_If you walk away from this now I will hold it against you for the rest of our lives. It won’t ever be like before again._

God, Rafael thinks as the panic surges back like a dark wave of water, is it too late to bounce back already? _It won’t be the same, but surely that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, best friends, that can’t be what she means._

He can feel himself sinking because of _course_ that’s what she was saying. Of _course_ she means it. He was too far in denial to realize it while she was talking but that’s where they are, he loses her now by saying no or later when they fight and break up and either way it feels like drowning, he can’t breathe —

 _Deep breaths,_ Rafael tells himself, except he can’t seem to manage one. He forces himself to sit up straight even though all his body wants to do is curl up in a little ball and sink to the bottom, _no,_ _breathe._ His hands are numb and the vision at the corners of his eyes is gone.

 _I’m having a panic attack,_ he realizes distantly. But without the peace of real distance because he still can’t fucking take a deep breath and there are tears pricking at his eyes and _the last time I had a panic attack was when Lewis took her and what if something like that happens again, I can’t, I couldn’t be a single father to Noah, but that means I’m abandoning him to no parent at all and what kind of coward does that make me,_ **_fuck_ ** _—_

His chest is so tight he feels like his heart might burst from the pain of it but even in the privacy of his apartment Rafael can’t let himself cry. He digs his nails into his palms, bites down on his cheek, and tries to focus on that tactile, knowable pain instead of his panic. _Probably not a healthy coping mechanism,_ he thinks in the back of his mind, but it’s working a bit so he’ll take it for now.

He remembers suddenly a college friend who used to have panic attacks and said that looking in the mirror helped — “it reminds you that you’re real,” she’d explained, quiet and matter-of-fact at a study table in the library. “It grounds you.” Rafael lets out a hysterical laugh. The idea of looking at his own face right now repulses him. _Glad it worked for her,_ he thinks, _but not for me._

Grounding, through. Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Get out of the suffocating water and back onto solid ground. Rafael forces himself to notice the soft glint of the kitchen light on the floorboards of the dark living room where he sits. The amber of his untouched scotch. The distant, occasional sound of late-night traffic, honking horns and passing cars four stories below. He uncurls his fists and presses his palms to the leather of the couch, warm where he’s been sitting.

He takes a deep breath.

_Okay._

So it didn’t come together piece by piece. Relationships aren’t a trial you can solve by breaking things down into a question tree. Who knew.

 _What it really comes down to,_ Rafael thinks, _is do I lose her for certain now, or almost certainly lose her later?_ If it’s later the pain will be worse and it’ll hurt Noah more too. That’s unacceptable.

He doesn’t like this question. He misses his old mantra: _Having some of her forever is better than having and then losing all of her._

Except he doesn’t really miss it.

And it’s _not_ certain, a small voice reminds him; it’s not certain he’ll lose her later. _We’ve fought, we’ve nearly torn ourselves apart, but we’ve been through hell together and come out closer and stronger. A different kind of hell. But maybe we could do this. Maybe we could swing it._

_We._

It’s so much better than _I,_ Rafael realizes.

 _I’m an idiot._ She’d told him so herself. _We can work through it together,_ she’d said. He’d heard her but he hadn’t _really_ heard her, not until now, and she’s right. It wouldn’t just be up to him. _I can’t ruin things all by myself,_ he thinks wryly; _we’d have to do it together, and — and I don’t think we would._

Rafael stares down at his palms and rubs at the half-moon marks he’d left in them with his nails. Abruptly, he unbuttons his shirt and shoves it from his shoulders, pulls up the sleeve of his undershirt, and touches a finger to the fleshy underside of his upper arm, to the fading bruise she’d left with her mouth last week. There are more scattered across his body, but they’ll only last a few more days. Then there will be nothing left from that week except either the ruins of their friendship. Or the beginning of something new.

 _This part,_ Rafael realizes, _this one part is in my hands alone._

He pulls his shirt back on, gets up, and pours his untouched scotch down the drain of the kitchen sink. He checks the time on the microwave clock. Only ten. And it’s Friday night. She’ll be awake.

He texts just to be sure. <Hey. Can I come over or is it too late?> He only catches the double meaning of “too late” after hitting send, and rolls his eyes at himself.

It only takes her two minutes to respond. <Is it about work?>

Rafael can practically hear the caution and nervousness in her words.

<No. It’s about what we were talking about earlier today.>

Another minute. He watches the three little dots appear and disappear twice before she responds.

<You’re sure you’re ready to talk about it?>

She follows that up with the skeptical emoji and he laughs despite knowing she’s using the humor as a defense mechanism.

<Well, you said not to take too long.> He feels like an asshole for not coming right out and telling her, but he’d feel worse not having this conversation in person.

His phone vibrates.

<Okay. Let me know when you’re outside and I’ll buzz you in.>

<Be there in about 45 min.> He pulls on his closest jacket, throws on a coat, and heads out the door.

 

Olivia frowns at her phone. Rafael lives fifteen minutes away by car at the most, and she can’t imagine he’s taking thirty minutes to get ready. Not unless he wants to look extra good for her, not unless…  

But no. If it were good news he wouldn’t wait to tell her, he would have called.

She turns off the TV and goes to her room to get ready. _I’m not going to have this conversation in yoga pants when he’s all dressed up,_ she thinks bitterly. But facing her closet she hesitates. What do you wear for a not-quite-breakup? Where’s the fashion advice for situations involving the collapse of a friendship and the methodical demolishing of any hope for something more? She snorts when she thinks that he’s the one person who would know.

She fists her hands, closes her eyes, and forces a deep breath. Opens them again. _Breathe in, breathe out._

In the end she settles for a pair of dark wash jeans and a casual grey blouse. She pulls on a pair of black socks too, because something about being barefoot for this feels so heartbreakingly vulnerable she can’t do it.

He’s still got fifteen minutes by the time Olivia is dressed. She paces her bedroom, goes and triple-checks that the living room is clean, then peeks in on Noah. He’s fast asleep.

 _Maybe Rafael decided to come tonight and not tomorrow because he knows I can’t yell at him when Noah is here,_ she thinks bitterly. Normally she’d label the idea as petty and unfair of her, but right now she’s not sure she’d put it past him.

She paces for another minute and then, with great contempt for herself, goes to the bathroom and puts on just the tiniest hint of foundation and mascara. _It’s so I don’t feel exposed,_ she tells herself, _and it’s good motivation not to cry._ But despite her furious hatred for it, a tiny flare of hope remains somewhere beneath her ribs, and she knows she’s putting on makeup because that stupid, childish part of her wants to look good for him. Because it — _it, not me,_ she thinks fiercely — _really believes_ he might be coming here to sweep her off her feet.

Her phone vibrates. He’s downstairs.

Olivia buzzes him up.

She shouldn’t have bothered with the mascara, because as soon as she opens the door to see him holding a bouquet of roses she begins to cry.

“No,” Rafael says, scrambling to close and lock the door without taking his eyes off her. That managed, he pulls her into a tight embrace. “No, Liv, don’t cry. I’m sorry. I want to — I want to try, if you still want to then I want to be with you, I don’t know what I’m doing but I want to try.”

She’s got her arms around his waist and doesn’t let go, even when she turns her face away to sniff “You’re stabbing me with the flowers.”

“What — ? Oh.” Rafael drops them to the floor and raises an unbearably gentle hand to the back of her neck where a thorn had pricked her. “I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s bleeding.” He pulls back slightly so he can see her face. “I hope that’s not some kind of bad omen,” he jokes weakly.

Olivia shakes her head. “Where did you even find roses at this time of night?”

“I know a guy.” There’s that lopsided smile she loves so much.

She laughs and presses her face to his chest. “No, really,” she says into his sweater. It’s soft and blue, she notices, the color of the shallows a brilliant ocean under the gray of his suit jacket and winter coat, both of which look hastily thrown-on.

“It took some looking,” he admits. “That’s why I needed forty-five minutes.”

Olivia pinches his side. “You kept me in suspense just so you could make me cry and poke me with some thorns the moment you walked through the door?”

Rafael cups her face in his hands. “I’ll make it up to you,” he says, and his voice is so grave it would be comical except it’s not. Not at all. She kisses the corner of his mouth to make him smile.

“Good,” she whispers. “You owe me.”

“I do,” he agrees, and kisses her back. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head without pulling away, and he laughs at the sensation of her lips running sideways back-and-forth against his.

“No more apologies,” she tells him. “Just make it up to me by — by being here. Stay. For real this time.”

“I will,” he promises. “Olivia, I love you so much.”

She presses closer and something in his suit jacket crinkles. Rafael frowns, looking down at it, and she sees realization flash across his face closely followed by nervousness. And a hint of guilt?

Her heart sinks without knowing why.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Nothing. Just some notes from work I left in my breast pocket.”

“You’re lying.” She says it like a question though she knows it’s true.

Rafael sighs in defeat. “Technically I’m not.”

Olivia glares at him but doesn’t pull her arms from around his waist. “Tell me.”

He shows her instead, reaching awkwardly into the pocket and handing her some much-folded, crumpled paper. It’s from a legal pad and covered in his messy yet flowing scrawl. Olivia removes a hand from his waist to take it.

She frowns after unfolding it one-handed. “This is just your speech from the conference.”

“Yeah. Uh, go to the last page. The last two pages, actually.”

She gives him a suspicious look and pulls back her other arm so she can sort through the pages more easily. His hands go briefly to her shoulders before he lets them fall awkwardly to his sides. He’s nervous. It doesn’t help her sense of apprehension.

All the pages are just bulleted notes, except the final two.

Olivia is conscious of Rafael’s eyes on her face as she reads. _Passionate. Heroic. Wise. Incomparable. Loving._ She clears her throat. “This isn’t very professional,” she tells him.

He laughs, but still looks nervous. “That’s why I skipped over it. I didn’t realize, when I was writing it…” He gives a bewildered little half-shrug, expressive like everything he does. “It didn’t feel like a big deal. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t thought a hundred times before.”

She looks down at the page again. The weight of emotion in her chest at the words he wrote — what he thinks of her — she can’t sit still with the feeling. It’s too much. “Am I your hero?” she asks teasingly, cocking her head to lighten the mood.

Rafael looks relieved. “Yeah,” he grins, teasing back. She knows he means it, though.

“Well that’s good, because you’re mine,” she says lightly with a playful shove at his shoulder.

Rafael looks astounded.

“Really?” he asks, all hints of levity gone.

Olivia blinks, and tries to think back. Has she really never told him what she thinks of him? No, she realizes with a pang, not in so many words. She folds the papers carefully and slips them into her pocket. She’s going to keep them.

“Rafael,” she says, placing her hands on his lapels. “You...”

He’s watching her carefully. She struggles to find the words.

“Everything you wrote about me, I could say the same about you.”

“Except the Joe Biden part.”

“Except the Joe Biden part,” she agrees with a laugh. “But really. I’ve worked with a lot of ADAs and there’s never been one who’s grown like you.”

Rafael’s mouth quirks into a smile. “So I get the trophy for Most Improved Player?”

Olivia makes an impatient _tsk_ noise. “No, I’m not saying this right.” She pats at his lapels, then slips her hands under his jacket so she can hold his waist the way he’s holding hers. “I’m not as good with words as you are.”

“I’m listening,” he says softly. “Take your time.” He goes teasing again: “I’m happy to hear all the praise you want to heap upon me.”

She rolls her eyes. “What I mean is the person I’ve seen you become — you’re the best ADA I’ve ever worked with. Not just because you’re smart,” she adds. “It’s, I don’t know, your passion, the way you work so hard. You take these impossible cases I give you and you fight tooth and nail and you win. Because you care so much. You just… you _get_ it. You belong to the law but also to the people it’s supposed to protect. You — Rafa, you live in a place that the men who wrote the law don’t even _think_ about. You make the world better.”

His eyes are shining. He looks like he can’t believe this is real.

Olivia brushes her hand through the greying hair at his temples. “Working with you and learning from you has been the great honor and joy of my life,” she quotes softly. “I feel that too.”

He closes his eyes and presses his face into her neck. She wraps her arms around him tighter and strokes his back, up and down as he gathers himself. When he pulls away he doesn’t go far. She kisses him.

“Stay the night.”

“I don’t have a toothbrush,” he frets, suddenly nervous again. “Or pajamas. And what about Noah in the morning —“

“So go out and get coffee early,” she says, calming him with another kiss. This has been a lot of vulnerability for both of them, she thinks. _But he’s still here._

“Come back once he’s awake,” she continues, “and he’ll never know you stayed the night. We’ll have that talk with him later.” Another kiss. “Don’t worry about it, baby.”

“Baby?” Rafael smirks against her lips. “That’s the pet name I get?”

Olivia draws back and raises an eyebrow. “You don’t like it?”

“I love it,” he grins. “Does that mean I get to use all of mine for you now, that’s allowed?”

She can’t hold back a smile of her own. “Yes, you officially get to call me honey and sweetheart.”

“Oh, I have more,” he informs her, pulling her close again to kiss her neck between words. She steps backwards over the roses and starts to pull him down the hall. “Gorgeous. Darling. And I haven’t even started with the Spanish yet.”

Olivia is self-conscious with all this attention, but he’s not looking her in the face so she’s not overwhelmed. It helps that she likes hearing all this, too, despite the feeling that she doesn’t quite deserve it, because who is she to be loved like this?

 _I deserve it,_ Olivia tells herself firmly, the way Lindstrom would applaud.

“What’s the Spanish?” she asks, running her hands through his hair. She enjoys the way it stands on end thanks to the light remains of the gel he’d combed through it this morning, especially at his bowed forehead.

She can feel him smile against her neck.

“Cariño,” Rafael answers. “Corazón. Mi vida, mi cielito.” He’s putting on an exaggerated lilt of an accent so that he sounds corny instead of sincere. She knows that despite that he’s still scared. She doesn’t call him on it. She knows he means every word.

“Hermosa,” he continues, half-laughing as he moves to kiss her collarbone. She closes the bedroom door behind them with a gentle kick. “Mi amada.”

He tugs at the hem of her shirt and steps back so she can pull it off and toss it away in the general direction of her dresser.

“Mi amor, of course.” He kisses between her breasts and unhooks her bra. “Mi alma.” _My soul._

Olivia catches his chin and tugs him up. His breath catches at the look on her face. The shine in her eyes. _I did that,_ he thinks with wonder.

“You’re glowing,” he tells her softly.

Her lips half-tremble with emotion as she smiles at him. “I love you so much,” she whispers.

Rafael pulls her as close as he can and blinks back sudden tears of his own. He inhales deeply. _Lavender and Olivia._ She lifts her head and kisses the underside of his chin, then his collarbone. “I love you, Rafa,” she repeats against his throat. “You — you make me so happy.”

He lets out a little laugh, incredulous at his own joy. His stupendous luck in finding her. In her choosing _him,_ out of a sea of people who adore her.  

“I love you too,” he says. He kisses her on the mouth. “Thank you for letting me. Thank you for waiting.”

She runs a hand down his stubbled cheek. “Oh, I think it’ll turn out to be worth it,” she smiles.

He smirks, toying with the button on her jeans. “You think?”

“Yeah,” she replies. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I mean it.”

Rafael shines. “It will be,” he promises. “I’ll make sure.” _I’m still scared, but not so much anymore. Not with you right here._ He gives her a soft, sweet kiss, and she sighs happily.

“Okay,” she says after his lips have lingered long enough. “Let’s get back in the gutter.”

He lets out a surprised, delighted laugh that turns into an absolutely wicked grin. “I can’t wait to have you in a real bed. Your bed.” He tugs off his sweater and the shirt underneath. Olivia skims her fingers across the bruises and hickeys she’d left last week, and he shudders in the most wonderful way.

She kisses a faint bruise just beneath his left collarbone. “I want to try your bed too, later,” she informs him. “So we can make some noise.”

“Mmm. My couch is very nice, too.” She pushes him down onto the mattress. He grins up at her.

“Oh?” she inquires, straddling him. “How about your dining room table? I remember it looks pretty sturdy.”

Rafael moans as she grinds down on him. Quietly. “Yes. And the bathroom counter. And the desk in my home office.”

He finally unbuttons her jeans and pushes them down even as he scoots further back on the bed and pulls her with him. Olivia kicks them off and makes short work of his own pants. As soon as they’re naked he flips her on her back.

“You never let me taste you, before,” he reminds her. “I know why, I get it, but… can I, now?”

She laughs. “Oh, _yes._ Please. I have a theory that your mouth is very talented, and not just with words.”

There’s that wicked grin again, and then he slowly, deliberately, _obscenely_ licks his lips. “I look forward to proving you right.”

Which he does — several times, in fact — until she’s demanding to have him inside her, and they smother each other’s gasps and moans with kisses. His ecstatic, contorted face when he comes silently is one of her favorite things she’s ever seen. She tells him so afterwards, as she pushes the sweaty hair from his brow.

“Glad I could put on a show for you,” Rafael mumbles, already half-asleep.

“That wasn’t a show,” she corrects him. “I’ll tell you how to put on a show for me, baby. Another time.”

He nuzzles closer. “Can’t wait.”

The next morning he showers, brushes his teeth with her toothbrush, and sneaks out for coffee as planned. He comes back half an hour later to find Noah wide awake at the kitchen bar counter, eating cheerios and chattering away happily to a sleepy, contented Olivia.

“Uncle Rafa!” Noah cries. “Good morning! Look, there’s flowers!” He waves his spoon at the roses Rafael had scooped up from the hallway floor where he’d left them the night before and put into a vase on the kitchen table.

“Those are very pretty,” he says to the boy, setting the coffees on the counter. He avoids catching Olivia’s eye so he doesn’t blow his cover with too big of a smile. “I have something for you, Noah.”

His eyes light up and he puts down his spoon, spilling some milk as he does so. “What is it?”

Rafael had stopped by his apartment before getting coffee, and now he reaches into his bag to pull out a little stuffed penguin and a picture book about the animals. “I got these at the zoo for you in Washington,” he tells Noah as the boy slides off the chair and runs over to seize the presents. “Sorry I’m giving them to you so late.”

“What do you say?” Olivia is asking her son, but it’s Rafael’s eyes she’s met. Her smile is small but radiant, and he can’t help but return it. The presents are a surprise to her too.

“Thank you,” Noah replies, as much to his mother as to Rafael. He’s plopped cross-legged on the floor, stuffed penguin under on arm as he flips the cardboard pages of the book.

Olivia comes from around the counter to where Rafael stands. She briefly leans her shoulder against his before pulling away. “Come eat,” she tells him, padding back to the kitchen in her bare feet.

For a moment he’s overwhelmed by the easy domesticity of it. Tousle-headed Olivia, risen from their shared bed. Her sweet, unsuspecting son. The kitchen that’s managed to become messy in the thirty minutes he was gone, the morning light coming through the living room windows, the smell of their regular coffee orders transported from busy sidewalks and offices to here, this morning, with just them.

He wants it forever. It terrifies him. But then Olivia cocks her head and smiles, and he remembers to take it one day at a time, and he goes to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't wild about the "showing up at her door with roses" thing because it feels too pat and easy, but I decided to just embrace it because this *is* a trope fic.


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just shameless fluff. Enjoy!

One year later, as they’re planning their wedding, they briefly entertain the idea of going back to that hotel.

“But I don’t want to spend our honeymoon in D.C.,” Olivia says with an exaggerated grimace.

Rafael laughs. “No, I agree.” He smiles as she leans down to rest her chin on his shoulder so she can better see his computer screen. “Flights to Venice,” he explains, then clicks into another tab. “And to Barcelona.” Click. “And London.”

She gives him a sidelong look. “ _And_ ?” she asks. “Or _or_?”

He shrugs the shoulder she’s not resting on. “I don’t start at the ACLU until a month after the wedding.” His mouth turns up into a smile on the word “wedding,” and hers does too. “So I have plenty of time. It’s up to you and how many of your many, _many_ vacation days you want to use.”

“Hmm.” Olivia straightens up and turns to lean against his desk, facing him and the open window behind him. The view outside is just a brick wall, but size and location of their new apartment more than makes up for the lack of scenery.

“I think I could swing two weeks,” she says after a minute of thought. She reaches over and runs a hand through the hair at Rafael’s forehead until it stands on end. He makes a face at her. She grins.

“So two cities?” he prompts.

“That sounds good. More than good.” She considers. “I vote for Venice and London.”

He pouts. Actually pouts.

“What.”

“I was hoping for Venice and Barcelona. I can speak Spanish there, we can get around easier.”

“Then why did you suggest London?” Olivia asks in exasperation.

“In case you could take three weeks and we could do all of them. Are you sure you can’t take three weeks?” He gives her a winning smile.

“Yes I’m sure, I have two new detectives to train and there’ll be a new ADA to break in, too. You’re a tough act to follow, counselor.” She says it teasingly but there’s an undercurrent of annoyance in her voice. “Two weeks is pushing it already.”

Rafael lets it drop. “Alright, Venice it is, and we’ll let Noah be the tiebreaker between London and Barcelona?”

That gets a smile from her. “Deal.”

He taps at her hand until she leans down and kisses him. “I can’t wait to marry you,” he murmurs against her lips.

Her smile widens. “Likewise.”

As they deepen their kiss, Rafael thinks again of that D.C. hotel. Of his trenchant resistance to the happiness he has now. Of his fears, which are lessened but still present. _Will I be a good enough husband? Father?_ Noah is already calling him Dad, sometimes Papá, testing out which he likes best. It makes Rafael’s heart swell every time. It also scares him. So does the way Olivia looks at him, sometimes; Rafael will catch her staring at him now and then with such love in her eyes he knows he can’t possibly deserve it.

He’s not worried she’s going to wake up one day and agree with that judgement. She knows him inside and out. She knows exactly what she’s getting into. He’s not insecure about her or her love — just frightened that he’s going to do something to destroy what they’ve managed to build together.

Rafael doesn’t even know what it would be, this terrible thing that could ruin everything. But that only makes it worse. Sometimes, on nights he has insomnia, when he’s alone in the dark and the rest of his family ( _my family!_ ) is sleeping, that nameless fear will rise up around him, that old dark water hungry to drown him.

He’s gotten good at getting back to dry land, though. In daylight his fears are few and far between. Therapy helps. Olivia helps.

She draws back to study his face. “Penny for your thoughts?”

He toys with a strand of her hair. “Just thinking how glad I am that we got stuck together in that hotel room. And that you kept calling me on my bullshit afterwards.”

“Hmm.” Olivia traces his bottom lip with her fingertip. He considers sucking it into his mouth but she looks like she’s got something to say, so he waits.

Sure enough: “That was a hard time.” She taps his chin thoughtfully. “I really thought I was going to lose you, for a little while there.”

He catches her hand in his and squeezes it gently. “I know, mi alma. I’m sorry.” He kisses her palm, then her wrist.

“It turned out well, though,” she observes.

Rafael grins into her palm. “Yeah, I think so. Thanks to you being so stubborn.”

“And you knowing how to listen,” she adds generously. He raises an eyebrow and she laughs; the whole lower half of his face is covered by her hand, making his skepticism clownish.

“No, really,” she says, withdrawing her hand. He catches it again but lets their tangled fingers rest on the desk, next to her thigh. “You’re a good listener. You heard me, and you thought about it, and you made the right call.”

 _Only after building a pillow wall and making you cry multiple times and having my first panic attack since 2014._ “I was stupid not to do it sooner,” he says out loud.

She shrugs. That thought doesn’t bother her like it does him, he knows. “We weren’t ready then, I don’t think,” she muses. “Anyway, we’re making up for any lost time now.”

Rafael lifts his pinky finger and strokes the bare skin of her thigh, just at the hem of her shorts. She shivers in the hot summer air.

“Yeah,” he says. He slips his hand out of hers and moves it higher up her thigh, under her shorts. Olivia shifts closer, her mouth curving into a smile. “I’ll never forget the look on your face when you opened the door and I was holding those roses.”

“The ones you stabbed me with?” she teases. “Yeah, I remember those.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m trying to be sweet.”

“You’re always sweet, baby,” Olivia simpers, and they both laugh out loud at the falsity of the statement.

“You’re sweet when it counts,” she amends. “I like your tough act, though.” She pulls his hand higher. “I like making you drop it.”

Rafael brushes his fingers against her, beneath her underwear where her legs meet. She’s warm, and wet already. Her lips part, and her eyes half-shut as she looks down at him with desire.

“I like that too.” His voice has gone husky. “Come to bed?”

Olivia shuts the laptop and kisses Rafael deeply, then stands and pulls him with her to the bed they share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, "the bed they share" is a little pat for a last line, but it's a trope fic so what the hell.
> 
> I have been sincerely blown away by the feedback on this fic. Thank you. It was a lot of fun to write, partially because I was trying something new (for me) with portraying these characters; partly because it was a deep dive into (this version of) Barba's head; and partly because of all the really kind words people have shared with me about this.
> 
> Getting back into writing SVU fic has been hard since Raúl Esparza left the show, and although I'm still struggling with my [multi-chapter angsty fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13557603/chapters/31110627), feedback on this one has made it a lot easier. If you guys want to read something else long by me in the meantime while I struggle with the aforementioned multi-chapter fic, you can check out "[A Hand On Your Face In The Dark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10189787/chapters/22628831)." It's the first fic I started in this fandom and it's a little clunky at parts (why, WHY was I so inconsistent about using their first names vs their last) but for the most part I'm really proud of it.
> 
> Anyway. Thank you again, so so much.


End file.
